The manifestations of fear come in various ways. They range from fear of making a commitment, flying, fear of uncertainties, heights among many other forms. Fear can be defined as an emotion experienced in anticipation of some pain, danger, failure or uncertainty. This feeling is usually accompanied by one’s desire to flee or rather fear deters one from trying to attain a certain goal. Fear is a very strong feeling which most of the times overpower all other emotions.Fear is an illusion that only exists in our mind and is neither visible nor tangible. However, it exists and manifests itself in what we do daily.
Fear also causes us to remain at a plateau state in our lives which causes us to fight against ourselves. This usually is a fight between the rational part of our brain and other triggered emotions. This state causes a lot of stress in us. We are concerned that what we fear most may eventually come to life. The irony is that by that, we actually profess life to our fears.
Fear, however, plays an important role in our lives. Who can imagine the world without fear? People would live reckless leading to many accidents. It is, therefore, distinguishing between activities that cause a healthy recognition of the environment around us against the illogical notions of fright which hamper the potential and limit our liability. This article will assist the reader to overcome fear. Below are some of the steps that will help you overcome fear and find the courage to conquer obstacles in life:
1. Acknowledge Your Fear
The first step towards over coming fear is determining what you are afraid of. Is it to walk out of an abusive relationship? Is it height? It helps to write down your fears perhaps in a journal and then say it aloud. At this stage, it is very important for you to be very honest with yourself, even the tiniest thing. This is usually the hardest step but the most important step toward achieving your goal. This exercise will not make much sense if you are not honest with yourself at this stage.
2. Determine What You Want To Achieve
After acknowledging your fears and writing them down, it’s now time to discover what fear has cause you to miss out or rather which goals have not been achieved because of fear. Is it starting a business? Is it learning some life skills such as swimming? This is a journey of self-searching or analysis. In this step, it is also important, to be honest just as step one. Some tough love is really necessary. Do not pity yourself. Go through each fear writing down what it hinders you from achieving. Writing down is a good practice as it keeps the records of your findings which will be very crucial in identifying which type of fear to conquer first in terms of priorities.
Fear causes us to be content with what we have. This is not healthy for human existence and quality life. Weneed to conquer great heights and set up goals and meet them for quality self-fulfilled lives. This step, therefore, requires one to be very frank and write down their goals against their fears.
This stage will end by identifying which fear need to be worked on first. You will determine this by looking at the effects it presents to your day to day functioning. Prioritize your fears and then start working at each of them. Some people will prefer to take baby steps others will decide to take the bull by its horn. It purely depends on you as the method still works.
3. Have Positive Thoughts – Visualize Success
The third step towards overcoming fear and finding courage is to be optimistic. Never underestimate the power of positive thinking. Positive thoughts are the fuel that is needed to propel yourself through this journey of finding the courage and overcoming fear. Numerous researchers have discovered that people who have positive attitudes while undergoing phobia therapy were more likely to overcome their fears as opposed to the ones who join the program with negative attitudes.
Most of the times, fears emanate from your own experiences. These are the negative experiences that you went through or viewing hardships among peers or individuals in your life. For instance, fear of divorce may come from having parents that went through a divorce. The negative experiences really weigh down on us and thus we need to arm ourselves with positive thoughts. Every morning, you should practice acts of positive thoughts through simple affirmations and positive visualizations. The negative experience should be erased completely for you to move on and conquer fear.
Find courage in believing in your own abilities and talents. Keep saying to yourself” I can do it” or “I can accomplish it”. By doing this you are opening up the windows of success and chances are high that you’ll overcome your fear.
4. Permit Change to Take Place
People are usually afraid of change. Change is often construed to mean a disruption in one’s life. Change really takes us out of our comfort zone to a greater discovery of ourselves. For one to be able to progress well in life, you must be able to accept necessary changes to come into their lives. Even if the changes are scary at first. Accepting change is a process that requires time so don’t be too hard on yourself by declaring affirmations like in step three slowly you will learn to appreciate a change in your life.
5. Relax
It is important once in a while to take a breather. Fear can be as a result of the accumulation of life stresses, too much pressure, and too many responsibilities. This often results in fear of failure. It is important therefore for one to take a break relax and eliminate all the anxieties. By calming down and meditating you allow your mind to have rest. Keep affirming positive things and visualization. Believe that you’ll be shown how to resolve the issue at hand and have a good time may be with your friends or sometimes alone while meditating.
As you deal with fear remember to breathe. Imagine your heart growing bigger and keep calm. Take deep breaths as your heart gets stronger. Keep this feeling for a few moments and affirm to yourself that you will never let fear get in your way towards achieving your dreams. By doing this, fear diminishes little by little.
6. Face it
At this stage, it’s time to face your apprehension head on. Determine your real concerns against baseless frights that do not make any logical sense. You will be surprised to realize that many of our fears are actually incapable of being explained or justified. At this stage only think of positive results and don’t worry about if you fail. Do what you fear the most and if it fails try again using a different approach. Never ever give up.
7. Learn from your mistakes
Once you face your fears you might fail or succeed. If you succeed congratulate yourself and move to the next step. What if it fails in the first attempt? Do you quit and go back to being comfortable? No. you should never give up from the first second third or whatever attempt you make. Keep on trying, only learning from your mistakes. Document each and every step you take and the result that followed. Don’t beat yourself up. Slowly by usually, you’ll devise ways that will eventually result in success. You should never give up on your goal due to fear of failure. Fear of failure is one of the reasons why people settle for an average life that is not self-fulfilling. Challenge yourself every day, get out of your comfort zone and achieve great things ahead of you. Learn from the failures of the attempts.
Have a plan of how you are going to conquer a certain obstacle. When you keep doing something that you are scared of, you develop courage as time progresses little by little. Without knowing the obstacles that seem too much for you to defeat will become minute and you’ll be able to explore your potential.
8. Comprehend It
Understanding and embracing your fears is the ultimate steps towards gaining courage. Become a professional at dealing with your fears and share your experiences with your close friends and family members. Find time to encourage people who are finding it hard to get over their fears. By sharing your progress with others it shows you are healing. Through this, you form something like a support group for people who are having fear challenges.
The role of fear essentially is to keep us safe but it has kept us in bondage living in it and there it’s time we break free and start conquering our goals. To reach our goals and find out new possibilities, we are required to shun fear out of our lives through our day to day activities and to build our strength and self-esteem.