How to overcome fear is a million dollar question. Fear is most certainly the most crippling emotion there is. It took me a long time to write this article and a lot longer to understand and learn how to overcome fear. In this article we will dig a little deeper into ourselves and learn how to overcome fear in a higher level. Some fears are just not so easy to get rid of and it takes a little more work to overcome them.
Below you can find a few tips on how to overcome fear, but first you have to understand what fear is and what it does to you. Read this article: Fear – your worst enemy.
Step 1 – Recognise your fear
Look into yourself and notice fear building up. Notice your feelings as we described in article Fear – your worst enemy. Once you get to know in detail how are you feeling when you are afraid you will be able to understand what is going on and prevent fear from impacting your life.
Step 2 – Define your fears
When you can recognise your feelings and when are you afraid, define what is it that frightens you. Write down your fears. Ask yourself is it really sensible to be afraid of them. Try to discarded the smallest and most ridiculous of them.
Step 3 – Imagine worst case scenario
The next step in learning how to overcome fear is to imagine the worst possible scenarios for it. Look at your list and think of the worst things that can happen. How many chances are that all that actually happen? What will happen if worst scenario comes true?
To explain this with the same example as in previous article – the worst thing with your super important email would be not to be answered or that you will get rejected. Is that something that is likely to happen? If recipient has at least some manners he will answer you, so you can scratch that one off the list. Getting rejected it is not your decision to make, so stop worrying about it.
How would you prevent worst case scenario?
Think how you can prevent worst case scenario. In this case you can do your best and impress them with your writing. Think outside the box, there definitely are more things that you can do.
If this isn’t enough for you think what happens if worst case scenario comes true – if you get rejected. Well… you won’t die. There are so many things that you can do as an alternative. You can even try to write another email to convince them to rethink their decision. Think of what you would do if everything fails.
Step 4 – The fear pyramid
Once you defined worst possible scenarios for your fears it is time to rank them. Write the biggest at the bottom and the smallest at the top of the fear pyramid. The goal in this step of learning how to overcome fear is to eliminate every one of them, starting with the smallest and work your way down to the biggest.
If you feel like doing this the hard way, first eliminate the biggest. In this way every next one will be smaller and less meaningful or frightening to overcome.
Step 5 – How to overcome fear
Photo by Gabriel Ecraela on Unsplash
When your fears are categorised there’s a good chance that you will discard some of them right away. But here is how to overcome fear that is much more stubborn:
Think of the goal
Remember the goal or think about why you have to do this fearful thing. Why did you set out to do this? The destination is probably worth the path. Get rid of negative thoughts and focus on your goal. This will motivate you to go through with it instead of chickening out. It will also help you think more positive thoughts since thinking of the final prize will make you happier. When you start to feel fear initially think of the goal and why did you start doing this in the first place.
Be a warrior – fight fear
No solider in a history of war never got out of it alive if he froze and waited for the war to be over. Well… Maybe a few lucky ones, but we can count them out. Take a big breath, count to 3 and go for it as if there is no alternative. No excuses, no procrastination, no avoidance. The trick here is to shutdown your train of thought that allows you to think of excuses and seek confirmation in the opposite of what you should be doing. Think of jumping into a cold water – you can spend 10 minutes delaying the jump and battling yourself yes, no, yes, no, or you can just jump and save yourself the 10 minute dilemma.
Turn your fear into excitement
Mel Robbins advises all of us to turn our fears into excitement. The reason behind this is that fear and excitement provoke the same physiological responses to our bodies. The crucial difference is how those two impact our brain. Think how you feel when you are excited. You feel amazing, happy, driven and overall energised. And when you are afraid? You feel quite the opposite, right?
Next time when you will be afraid of something this is how to overcome fear: think hard and replace the “I am afraid of…” with “I am excited to…”. Don’t just say it, but really try to feel and believe it.
Quick guide for every situation
Now we’ve learned how to overcome fear and how to deal with it the long way. But usually you just don’t have enough time to go through all that. And with time when you become an expert in how to overcome fear, you won’t have to go through all that. So here’s a few quick tips how to overcome fear on the go.
- notice your fear – you will become a master in this really soon, I promise
- define your fear – once you recognise you’re afraid, you will quickly know why
- discard it and go through with what you should do, but if it’s s bigger one think of how will the result make you happy or turn this fear into excitement
Photo by Joshua Sortino on Unsplash
Free (Wo)man is never scared
Fear is your worst enemy when it comes to achieving your goals and dreams. It is the most common obstacle that crosses our path. Free women can manage her fears and go through with what she set out to do. Because the goal is worth it. So apply this steps of how to overcome fear every time you start to feel afraid or feel that fear is trying to control your decisions and doings. It should not be your ruler!
— Seneca
