How to Overcome Fear - Face Your Fears
When it comes to dealing with fear, you have three choices.- First, you can try to avoid it altogether. But that means staying away from every known or potential fear-producing person, place, thing, or situation. That’s neither practical nor productive. If you move tentatively from place to place, always worrying that around the next corner you’ll come face-to-face with something that could cause you to fear, you will be tied into knots.
- A second way to deal with fear is to hope that it will go away. But that’s like hoping for a fairy godmother to rescue you.
- Third way is to deal with fear, and that is to face it and overcome it. In the end, that’s the only method that really works. Here is a strategy to help you face the fear:-
1. Discover the Foundation of Fear
Most of the fears we face every day are not based on facts. They are generated by our feelings. For example, a study conducted by the University of Michigan showed the following:• 60 percent of our fears are totally unwarranted; they never come to pass.
• 20 percent of our fears are focused on our past, which is completely out of our control.
• 10 percent of our fears are based on things so petty that they make no difference in our lives.
• Of the remaining 10 percent, only 4 to 5 percent could be considered justifiable.1
These statistics show that any time or energy you give to fear is totally wasted and counterproductive 95 percent of the time. Fear is interest paid on a debt you may not owe. If you’ve allowed yourself to be detoured by fear, it’s time to look beyond your feelings and examine the thinking that’s generating your fears. Compare your thought patterns to the facts, and see where they don’t match up. If your focus is on the past, try to move beyond it. If you’re worrying about petty things, remind yourself of what is really important. And if you can’t change your thought patterns on your own, seek the help of a professional counselor. Don’t allow yourself to remain a prisoner of your feelings.
2. Admit Your Fears
The best thing to do in the case of your few justifiable fears (5 percent or less) is to acknowledge them and keep moving forward.You must realize that the things you fear will come true or they won’t. And your fear will not positively affect the outcome. Fear can only detour you if you let it.
Any time you try to move forward into new territory on the success journey, there is a chance that you will fail. Your attempt to move forward may also make you look foolish. And the thought of that probably makes you nervous. That’s all right. Just about every person who ever achieved something of value faced fear and moved forward anyway. True heroes are the men and women who conquer themselves.
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The bottom line is that you have a choice. You can feed your fears, or you can starve them. Both fear and faith will be with you every minute of every day. But the emotion that you continually act on the one you feed dominates your life. Acting on the right emotion lifts you to success, while acting on the wrong one starts you on a disheartening detour.
Successful person who keeps growing, taking risks, and moving forward feels the same feelings of fear as the one who allows fear to stop him. The difference comes because one doesn’t let fear dominate, while the other does.