Dealing with Fear

Dealing with FEAR: False Evidence Appearing Real. How much have you let fear control your life and success? What needs to change?

There seems to be one thing guilty of holding us back more than anything else: Fear.

Humans are equipped with a fear emotion in order to deal with life threatening situations: fight or flight. Like a growling dog coming towards you can invoke quite some fear, can’t it? However those of us blessed to be living and working in the “first world” rarely have to draw on “fight or flight”, do we?

So what are we so afraid of? Fear of failure; fear of people; fear of making a fool of ourselves; fear of loss, fear of making a poor decision or making a commitment, fear of the unfamiliar, even fear of success – the list is endless, isn’t it?

The common factor in all of these fears: They are usually only created in our minds. They are usually “self engineered”. And they are often the substance of what we worry about, aren’t they? (By the way: Worry is using your imagination to create something you do not want.)

I have learned to reframe fear and suggest it is False Evidence Appearing Real. I have learned to consider fear often to be a speculation. Would you agree with me that in most cases the things we fear in our mind don’t actually manifest?

Fear is often used as an excuse so we don’t try so we can’t fail. It may be a belief or a strategy. It is often used very effectively in procrastinating. It can get in the way of so many things we really want.

But there are countless examples of great things being accomplished despite the presence of fear. In fact most great feats are done despite fear. How? By overcoming fear with courage and action. One often hears of great heroic deeds accomplished by soldiers or in other extremely tough life situations where when asked afterwards if they were afraid it was a case of “too right I was, but it needed to be done so I just did it”.

Action cures fear.

So again we face a choice here. We can allow fear to control us and prevent us from doing what we know  we are able to do and what we want to do and what needs to be done. Or we can take control of our fear and “just do it” anyway. It is a conscious choice and decision. How much better will you feel about yourself when you mustered the courage and “just did it”, and got the outcome you wanted? And if you tried and “failed”, wouldn’t you at least have learned something so you can do it better next time?

So next you feel fear or realise you are procrastinating on something, then use “the gap” to check if this is a real or perceived threat and reframe it: “what outcome do I want and will fear help me or hinder me to get it?” and then make the right choice for what you want to achieve.  You can, you know.

Providence favours the bold that feel the fear and do it anyway.