6 Steps to Overcome Your Fears
“Fear is the main source of superstition, and one of the main sources of cruelty. To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom.”– Bertrand Russell
Our decisions are one of the most important components of life that affect not only the present time, but also our future. Our emotions guide us when we make decisions. While positive emotions contribute to keeping something going, negative emotions like fear and anger can put us in a difficult position and create obstacles until we eliminate them.
Since our priority is to protect ourselves when making decisions, our fears are more prominent. Fear is an emotional state that helps people survive. Just as pain is the body’s alarm function to warn of danger, fear has a vital importance. For example, if we could touch the fire without fear and pain, it would be very easy for us to suffer burns that could be life-threatening.
We allow our fears to rule many important situations in our lives, sometimes consciously, sometimes without even realizing it.
Because, before we take a step, we make a risk analysis and if the resulting picture scares us, we stop taking a step and continue to stay in our comfort zone.
Because our fears protect us, it’s good to take advantage of it to some extent. However, if we have created our own prison, which we have built with walls of fear, then we must identify this troublesome situation and change it.
We must not let our fears make us prisoners in shackles.
We can start by analyzing our fears.
According to Rachman (1997), fears are acquired in three ways that can be separate but often combined:
- Direct Conditioning: Fear of a child after being attacked by a dog.
- Vicarious Learning: Fears that a child learns from watching the fears of their elders.
- Intructional Learning: Describing the earthquake as God’s punishment.
When the 10 most common fears were evaluated, it was seen that they were usually the result of vicarius or instructional learning. That means; We often create our own fears.
Think about your fears; I’m sure you can also notice those from different roots.
Once we find our fears, get to their roots and dissolve them, they are no longer as strong as they used to be.
Sometimes knowledge, sometimes ignorance scares us. In vicarious fears, we learn to fear what others fear as we grow up. So while we live, the knowledge of fear passes to us. On the other hand, we are afraid of things that we do not understand and do not know. Children are afraid of the dark, we are afraid of starting a business of which progress can not be predictable, we are afraid of getting close to someone we do not know, we are afraid of riding the ferris wheel in an amusement park… The possibility that we might like it very much after trying the Ferris wheel is actually an indication of how unfounded the initial fear might be. Many such things are fears that come with ignorance and inexperience.
6 Steps to Overcome Your Fears
- Define your fear
The very first step is defining your fear. Fear of heights? Fear of failure? Fear of success? Is it communication? Is it a change? Defining it will help to reveal a lot about why you have these fears and will also help you to determine a plan of action and develop your goals.
- Find the signs of fear
Understanding your fear is critical to overcoming it. How does it come on? How does it make you feel? Do you feel nauseous when you are afraid? Does it create panic and tension? The level of intensity will tell how deep of a fear this is and how it affects you both physically and emotionally.
- Identify the domain of fear
How detrimental is this fear to you achieving your goals and future success? Honest answers to these questions will help determine how much of a plan you need to conquer it.
- Determine whether its real
Your fear could be self-generated. It looks and feels real, even though it’s not happening right now, like fear of the future. If you find yourself asking questions like — “What if I don’t make it?” “What if he doesn’t like me?” “What if they laugh at my ideas” — these are usually artificial barriers that we put ourselves.
- Educate your fear
“Fears are educated into us, and can, if we wish, be educated out.” —Karl Augustus Menninger
Some fears are based on personal experiences, childhood trauma or abuse or even tragedy, loss and grief. Others are as a result of culture and past experiences. Finding the reason of your fears is the most important first step to solving them.
- Take action
Have a concrete plan. For instance, seek help from your loved ones to overcome a fear of public speaking. Share your fear and start practicing in small groups. Conquer your fears, do not hesitate to experiment with planned and cautious.
And of course, I will not leave you without a book recommendation 🙂
Robin Sharma is one of my favorite authors. Who knows in which book I read the following paragraph that I found among the notes I wrote. I highly recommend these books as a set. I never thought that one day the paragraph below would cause me to write this article when I read it again.
Sometimes, do things just because you feel like it. Do not look for any other reason. Some causes show up when the time comes, not when you’re looking.
Face Your Fears
It is the invisible architecture of fear that hinders us in life. Fear keeps us in our comfort zones, which is, quite frankly, the most insecure place we can actually live in. The biggest risk in life is not to take any risks. But every time we do what we fear, we regain the power that fear has stolen from us, because on the other side our strengths reside. Each time we risk the discomfort of growth and progress, we become more liberated. The more fears we overcome, the stronger we become. In this way, we become both fearless and strong so that we can live the life of our dreams. Robin Sharma
With Love…
