All of us experience fear at some time or another and if we didn’t we’d be oblivious to danger so it’s nothing that should cause us to feel weak. However, many people develop such an innate sense of fear that it begins to have a detrimental impact upon almost all aspects of their lives.
Fear can come to us in many different ways. It can manifest itself in us telling ourselves that “I can’t do this” or “I’m hopeless at doing that” or it may arise from reading or seeing bad news, for example, a violent crime may have been committed not far from where you live and you end up paralysed by fear that the same thing is going to happen to you.
Fear can often arise when we’re put into a situation we’re not familiar with or we’re asked to meet with people whom we have never met before. Therefore, even though there may not be any inherent danger, we’re still frightened by something which takes us out of our comfort zone.
How can Fear be Conquered?
Fear is only present when you allow your mind to think negative thoughts. If you spend time harbouring only positive thoughts about the kinds of things you want out of life and you instil a sense of your own confidence and a positive outlook on life within yourself, then negative thoughts such as fear cannot take hold.
Action gets rid of fear. By being active, you won’t have the time to ponder over fear which, ultimately, will paralyse you and cause you to fail. Life is all about taking risks occasionally and, even though that means letting yourself flirt with the unknown, you should approach any new experience or challenge with courage and a determination to succeed. You may not succeed all of the time but in having a healthy attitude to success and realising that sometimes you’ll make mistakes along the way, then any failures you have can simply be viewed as an attempt that has not quite worked out but which you can learn from to ultimately reach your goal.
You should not be attempting to make yourself fearless however. As mentioned previously, we must all have the ability to feel an element of fear to enable us to assess dangers realistically.
Don’t make excuses or put off doing something. If, for example, you feel uncomfortable walking into a crowded room full of strangers, don’t put off doing it. Consider the reality of the situation you are faced with and ask yourself just how ‘frightening’ it really is. When you rationalise situations like that, you’ll soon come to the realisation that there is nothing contained within the situation that’s dangerous or can actually harm you. Once you accept this, face that situation time and time again until you’ll become so used to it (you may even get bored of it) that any fearful thoughts you once held about it will have diminished completely.
Prison of Self Doubt
If you let fear get the better of you, you’ll end up being locked within a prison of self doubt and this will have a negative impact upon your ability to grow in life and to try out new experiences.
The important thing to remember is that although some events in life are naturally met by a feeling of fear, for example, being cornered by a large wild animal or you’re about to parachute out of a plane at 20,000 feet for the first time ever, much of our feelings of fear are imaginary and an overreaction to situations in life which we are faced with and your imagination can always be changed into a positive outlook on life.