Overcoming Fear & Living The Life You Deserve
What is your greatest fear? How will you release your fears? Here’s a low-down on overcoming fear!
Did you know fear can harm your health? When you are afraid your body secretes a hormone called cortisol that induces the “fight or flight” response. This hormone stops digestion and, therefore, all the food in your stomach just sits there…fermenting. All the energy in your body must be used to protect itself from the situation that caused the fear.
The challenge is some people live in constant fear. This includes fears such as fear of failure, or rejection, or not being good enough, or looking foolish, or what people will think or say, or the fear of not looking good or lacking approval from your family, friends and other people. It also includes fear of doing something wrong and the punishment, public speaking, losing money or not having enough money, embarrassment, looking stupid, snakes or spiders or small places or failing at (whatever)… or the fear of success, whatever it is for you!
The Biggest Fear is the Fear of Not Looking Good
A study of thriving entrepreneurs discovered the major fear nearly all of these business people had was the fear of ‘not looking good in front of others’.
Amazing! These are successful people who are afraid of not looking good!
These already successful people were more afraid of not looking good than losing money or going bankrupt! They lose sleep over this fear, analysing what they could do if they stuffed up in front of their peers! Donald Trump said in his autobiography that his biggest fear was the fear of being second best.
According to the U.S. National Institute of Mental Health, social anxiety afflicts more than 5.3 million Americans. They succumb to the fear of not looking good in front of others and it stops them from achieving success.
But the crazy thing, according to psychologists is We Were Born With Only Three Fears:
- The fear of falling
- The fear of loud noises
- The fear of abandonment
These three fears were present in us as babies before we had intellect and logic capabilities.
Children under seven years old have no fear of failure or of not looking good in front of others or of fear of rejection. Every parent will be familiar with the following:
“Can I have an ice cream?” No.
“Can I have an ice cream?” No. I told you.
“Can I have an ice cream?” No. You haven’t had your dinner yet.
“Can I have an ice cream?” No. It is too cold for ice cream.
“Can I have an ice cream?” Sigh. OK…
Kids don’t accept a “no”. They are a picture of persistence and are focused on what they want and they keep going until they get it.
So, if we are born with those three fears, where do all the other ones come from?
All these fears are learnt fears that we picked-up when we were growing up.
Since these fears are learnt, then surely we can ‘un-learn’ them.
That was such a powerful revelation to me because I had the fear of public speaking. It was a learnt fear from a bad experience
. But once I understood the fear, I was able to reject the fear and choose a higher path. I didn’t want to be controlled by an event that had happened in the third grade.
So, to conqueror your fear you have to acknowledge you are controlled by it.
Not all fears are bad. We need to fear the consequences to our safety when there is a fire, earthquake, etc. If we don’t have those preservation fears, we would do stupid things. Fear is natural and is part of life. But the problem occurs when irrational fears stop us from setting goals and reaching for our dreams and achieving our goals.
Every time we feel the fear in the pit of our stomach, remember, that fear is just a thought. It’s not real–it is a thought. Acknowledge the fear thought, evaluate it and then decide if you want to be controlled by it. See it as negative energy. And now that you know it’s not real, change your view of fear. See it for what it is…resistance to your success.
Just imagine what you could achieve when you release the anchor! What adventures, memories or business ventures would you get underway if you knew you couldn’t fail? Visualize how awesome your life would be if you would just grab every opportunity and run with it.
What would change in your life if you had no fears?
Donald Trump used his fear of being second best as his incentive to succeed. He reframed this fear and changed it from a limiting belief to the motivating energy behind his success. He can be a role model for all of us.
