How to Overcome Fear So It Does Not Get in the Way of Achieving What You Truly Want
Fear plays an important role in preventing us from achieving what we really want, but we should not see fear as an enemy. Managing fear effectively involves understanding and acknowledging that fear has a reason to exist. It is a natural reaction triggered by the perception of danger.
When we perceive something as a threat, fear gets activated. But fear serves an adaptive purpose; imagine you had to survive in the jungle and your body didn’t have any mechanisms to prepare you to react to real threats—you wouldn’t survive for very long!
The problem arises when fear gets activated by a perceived threat that is not actually real. So, what do you do with your fears when they are not justified and not serving a purpose, such as the fear of failure? How do you get rid of it?
How to Overcome Fear When It’s Just a False Alarm
1. Acknowledge your human nature
To overcome fear, it is critical to understand and respect how your brain and body function. A key aspect is to acknowledge that fear is part of the human experience, so don’t even be bothered by it. Instead of wasting all your energy trying to fight fear because you find it an unpleasant emotion, the easiest way to handle fear is to go with it. Embrace your fears. Paradoxically, this will calm them down.
You can tell yourself something like: “My brain and body are just trying to protect me and doing their job, but this is not a real threat, so no need to do anything about it.” And remember: Being brave doesn’t mean being fearless; it means being able to take action despite your fears.
To overcome fear, it is critical to understand and respect how your brain and body function. A key aspect is to acknowledge that fear is part of the human experience
2. Re-wire how you process fear
If you pay attention to your thoughts when you are afraid, you’ll probably observe that you are telling yourself things like, “I am so nervous,” “I am so anxious,” or “I am so scared.” Instead of trying to calm down and relax, you can do two things.
One, trick your brain by telling it some counter-thoughts, such as “I am so good at this” or “I am perfectly prepared for this.”
Two, excitement is much closer to being nervous and afraid than being relaxed in terms of arousal levels, so you can much more easily move from feeling afraid to feeling excited than to feeling calm and relaxed, which are at opposite ends of the arousal spectrum. Instead of focusing on trying to relax, try the exact opposite. Convince your brain that you are very excited. Jump when you feel nervous and just tell yourself with conviction, “I am so excited!”
Also, a little trick for those suffering from fear of failure: don’t see things as failures; it’s a trial-and-error process, a learning process.
Excitement is much closer to being nervous and afraid than being relaxed in terms of arousal levels, so you can much more easily move from feeling afraid to feeling excited than to feeling calm and relaxed
3. The AND trick
You don’t necessarily need to get rid of your fear to achieve what you truly want unless you perceive being afraid as incompatible to achieving what you want. If you do, then you create an internal conflict, and you believe that because fear exists, achieving X is not possible.
Example: Because I am afraid, I can’t give a good speech.
Rather than approaching the situation with the proposition “If A, then not B,” think of it as “A AND B.” Tell yourself: “I can be afraid AND achieve [whatever it is you are trying to achieve].” Or, as I said on a different occasion: “I am proudly going with my fears, AND I will be great.”
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