Overcoming Fear

Why are you constantly worrying about panic and anxiety that is, in fact, natural to us all? Fear is a master to those who let it get to them, but fear comes in two forms:

Healthy fear – we panic or feel anxious when we step onto a roadway with oncoming traffic. Natural fear and anxiety takes over and we take measures to protect ourselves.

Unhealthy anxiety and fear – when you feel anxious and fearful constantly without any concrete evidence of the presence of a threat, it is a sign of weakness and a sign that you have lost control of yourself. Get back your control by following the steps in this guide to overcome unhealthy fear.

Overcoming Fear of People

Overcoming your fear of people. There are three steps you can do yourself at home to desensitize yourself. First, write on 3 x 5 cards threatening situations from the least to the most, preferably with small steps of anxiety arousal between each situation.

For example, suppose you are afraid of talking to people. You might construct a hierarchy including imagined situations such as the following:

1. You enter a crowded room full of people.

2. You're walking down the hall toward the people.

3. You're standing alone in front of a group of people.

4. Next, imagine yourself walking toward the crowd and saying "hi".

5. Picture yourself walking up to the crowd

6. You're standing alone in the crowd of people.

Relaxation Techniques

The next step to overcome fear is to train yourself in relaxation techniques. Sit in a comfortable chair or lie on a couch or bed. Then, beginning with your forehead and scalp, practice relaxing and letting your muscles go limp. Then progress to your jaw muscles, then your neck, and so on. You may vary this technique by alternatively tensing and relaxing each set of muscles.

Alternatively, you can combine this with deep breathing techniques: breath in, exhale, and continue. Whichever method you use, spend two or three sessions practicing your relaxation techniques until you can become reasonably relaxed.

Practice

Take the top card from the pile and look at it. As soon as you experience any anxiety, stop imagining the scene and go back to your relaxation techniques. When you are completely relaxed, look at the card again.

Repeat this until you can look at the card without feeling anxious. Then progress to the next card. You can heighten the realism of the imagined scenes by using such aids as pictures, recordings, slides or videotapes.

It is important that you do not rush. Don't be upset if you can only visualize a few scenes in the hierarchy in each session. Each person has his or her own rate of progress when it comes to overcoming fears.

Tip

Did you know that emotional pain is not a sickness. Emotional pain has gotten a bad name that is undeserved. There is nothing wrong with feeling bad. It is even ok to feel miserable, depressed, sad, upset, angry, dejected, gloomy or unhappy at times.

It certainly is not a pleasant feeling to feel bad, but hey, it's ok. Sadness is natural when we lose friends, move house, or feel hurt by someone that lets us down. When someone mistreats us, we appropriately express anger.

Sadly, many people try desperately to avoid feeling down or angry and often it is because they feel it is bad. This kind of behavior is promoted by invalid messages we receive every single day. It started when we were small children, with "Please don't cry," or "Stop that crying this minute," or "Oh, Cheer up!" Later in our lives we probably received similar advice, such as "sleep on it, you'll feel better tomorrow," or "Have a drink; it is the best way to relax," or "Take two of these pills and you'll feel great."

The problem here is your memory suppresses your natural ability to show emotions due to misguided advice. These messages may come from well-meaning people that care about you and do not understand your pain, or those who don't want you to hurt.

It is almost impossible to not feel sad at times. If the depression continues, it may be a problem. If your feelings of anger, sadness, or depression persist, you should seek help. Otherwise, allow some of the feelings in, since they are usually appropriate and necessary for personal growth.

When a loved one dies, it is necessary to grieve. The grief might appear in the form of depression, sadness, or anger. It's not uncommon to feel extreme emotional pain; it is natural, and doesn't necessarily last.

When feeling bad becomes a problem, it is usually because you didn't allow yourself to feel bad. So the next time you feel rotten, go ahead and feel rotten. It will pass, and it will probably pass more quickly if you don't fight it or pretend it doesn't exist. Here are some good ways to feel bad.

Overcoming Fear of Failure

A famous proverb says that failures are the pillars of success, and believe me they are! Pick up the history books or browse the net and you will find that almost all successful people have faced failures many times in their lives. One example that I profoundly remember is Chris Gardener, the entrepreneur and founder of the stock brokerage firm Gardner Rich & Co. The movie The Pursuit of Happiness is inspired by the true story of Chris Gardener's life journey to fame and riches. The protagonist of the story, Chris Gardener (Will Smith) struggles for bread and butter with his little son, however, he never lets failures break him. He perseveres to succeed. We can pick some nuggets of wisdom from the life of such people. Read more on how to overcome fear of failure become successful below.

What is success? Each of us has different ideas about success. While some view it as overall success in life, others compartmentalize it into various aspects of life such as success in their relationships, family success, financial success, and so on. If you flip through the pages of history, you will come across many individuals who seem to have the Midas touch – being able to achieve greatness despite seemingly insurmountable odds. While some may attribute their success to pure luck, and others attribute it to sheer hard work, however, there is more to the success of people like Henry Ford and Andrew Carnegie.

Success can be thought of as a state of mind which anybody can aspire to and achieve. One of the first things to keep in mind is that success is a process. There really is no esoteric secret to it and neither is it reserved for only a few chosen people. Intrinsically, success is not merely about fate, coincidence or luck; it is about perceiving the steps involved in the process and then putting those steps into practice.

Below are a few pointers on how to overcome fear of failure become successful:

Becoming Successful is Deciding on a Course of Action

One of the first steps in the process of becoming successful is to make the decision to achieve something. All of us know that nothing can move forward until that first decision is made. The initial action is always the decision to go ahead, which is a rudimentary step that many people tend to overlook. So, decide on moving forward, put your decision down in writing to keep it in focus, and then carry on from there.

Success Means Having Clarity of Vision and Purpose

Having clarity of vision and purpose is perhaps one of the most important factors of achieving success. Without having a clear picture of exactly what it is that you want to achieve and how you are going to go about doing it, your goals will lack a sense of continuity. According to the Law of Attraction, we attract only those things that we focus on; hence, if there is no clarity, the only thing we will attract is confusion.

The fact is that most people simply have no idea about what they really want, and so lack clarity of vision and purpose. So how does one acquire clarity? Well, introspection is the key. Ask yourself questions like: What is it that I really want? What does success mean to me? How will this accomplishment make a difference to my life? In other words, clarity means understanding exactly what you want, why it is that you want it, and how it will affect your life.

Becoming Successful Involves Setting SMART Goals

Once you acquire clarity of vision and purpose, the next vital step of achieving success is in defining goals for yourself – specifically defining SMART goals. The acronym 'SMART' stands for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Time-Sensitive. Identifying what you want and determining SMART goals that you set as milestones along the path to success are essential to achieving it.

Success Means Making a Plan and Staying Focused

Staying focused means being able to accomplish what you set out to do with unwavering concentration. Life is full of distractions – newspapers, TV, family, managers and clients, e-mail and telephones – all of which can be completely overwhelming. So, how does one stay focused despite all of life's distractions? Well, willpower is one of the factors, although willpower alone will not be sufficient to stay focused.

One of the best ways is to devise and then stick to a plan. Begin the plan with the goals you have in mind and then work backwards, mentioning each step that is required to achieve those goals. The plan should be made as detailed as possible. Make an effort to visualize every possible setback, and plan for it. Write the plan out either on your computer or on paper, and review it on a regular basis, ensuring that each step you accomplish takes you closer to your goals.

Achieve Success by Deferring, Delegating or Deleting

In addition to making your plan, you need to also develop a direction to the plan of action which will keep you motivated to keep going ahead at all times. Although you may require some self-discipline to do this, it is a vital aspect of any kind of achievement. Prior to beginning any new activity, examine it to see if it will help in moving you nearer to the goals you have in mind. If it does not, you could put it aside for another time. To defer, to delegate, or to delete are the 3 Ds that are taught by many personal and business coaches. If a certain activity can be put away for a later time, defer it. If that activity can be done by somebody else, delegate it. If it does not really need to be done at all, it can be deleted. This kind of close examination of each activity will help in keeping you focused on the things that are important.

Success is about Having Commitment

Commitment is about having the trait of steadfast and sincere fixity of purpose. This often involves being willing to pay the price that everything has. This is an important factor because no one wants to put all their effort into doing something only to discover later that the price they paid was too high. The price may not be in monetary terms; it could be sacrifice, effort, time, and also money, or maybe something else. The point is that in order to become successful, you must be fully cognizant of the price involved and be ready to pay it.

Success Involves Having Self-Belief

Lack of self-belief is one of the biggest hurdles that many people need to surmount in order to become successful. Most people have a lot of baggage due to their upbringing. This baggage generally consists of self-limiting beliefs, which can actually prevent them from finding the success they seek. People are often bogged down with notions as if they are not good enough, or not smart enough, and even not worthy enough. Success can only be achieved by shedding these self-limiting beliefs and replacing them with positive self-beliefs. It is an established fact that if you think you can do something, you will, and conversely, if you think that it cannot be done, it will lead to failure.

Success Lies in Taking Action

Nothing can be achieved until action is taken to achieve it. After all the above steps of deciding on a course of action – having clarity of vision and purpose, setting goals, making plans, staying focused, being committed, and creating self-belief – you will need to go ahead and act on what you want to achieve. By putting your plan of action into play, you will get to what you set out to achieve – success!

Help is available online - use the links below to learn more or to take a test.