Last week while conversing with a good friend of mine, she mentioned that she did something unimaginable to overcome her fear. She was so jazzed about it and said that it was the best day of her life when she got on to the road of not being fearful anymore.
Obliviously the writer and the Coach in me is always on the lookout for people overcoming their limitations or pushing themselves to an unimaginable level they never thought of before . I did convey to her that my next article would be dedicated to her on overcoming her biggest fear and so it is here.
Some of the things which you can actually do to overcome fear in your respective lives would be
First acknowledge your fear:
The first thing is to accept that the fear is a reality and is very much a part of us. Once we identify our fears and get to know where it is lurking within us then we can get into the action mode. Many of us make the critical mistake of not acknowledging our fear and pretending that it will not affect us at all. Fear is very much there and it will affect your life if you do not do something about it at some point of time.
Feel the fear:
The next thing to do is to feel the fear by experiencing it and bring it out in the open. Now if people have difficulty in getting into this mode at an instant then they can visualise the time that they experienced the fear which just about incapacitated them. Remember even the best people in any field have fear lurking inside them. While most of them feel the fear, they learn to ignore it and that is one of the reasons why they are someone to look up to. Remember that fear is a part of you but it can never control you. Once you make fear get bigger and bigger, it feeds off itself and becomes a monster.
Ask yourself what is the worst that can happen:
When we acknowledge our fear and feel it inside us, the next best thing to do according to me is to ask yourself as to what is the worst that can ever happen to you. It is surprising that when I put this question to a client in my coaching sessions it is more often than not that they will not know what the worst case scenario is. At the worst, most of them eventually acknowledge that they might face negative remarks, friends might desert them or they even might fall down in full sight of people around them but the most important thing is that they will live and survive to fight another day. By letting go of the fear and knowing about the worst thing that can happen, you will be setting up a good platform to move on to the next level.
Just do it:
Sometimes thinking too much makes you small in your mind. if it is something like driving the car or even public speaking, the best thing to do is just get into the act and do it. When I wrote my first Blog and newspaper article I was so overwhelmed with fear about how people would react to it. What if I made some mistakes? At that point everything in the world made me think twice before I did it. Eventually I overcame my fear and Just did it and have so far survived a couple of months later and as you read this I am regularly writing articles in newspaper and my Blog. The magic is in doing it and enjoying it.
Be in the moment:
When you are doing something which you fear the most do not think about anything else but just be in the moment. Remove all distractions in your mind and focus on the work at hand. Give it your undivided attention and energy. What this does is that it makes you channelize all your energy in the positive direction.
Take small steps:
Conquering fear and overcoming it is a journey on its own. It takes small steps, one after the other, to reach our destination. What matters is taking baby steps in the right direction. Start small and build things around it. Over a period of time these small steps will add up and eventually you will climb the mountain called fear in you.
Celebrate your success:
When you do something right, make it a point to celebrate it in a small way. The idea here is to acknowledge the fact that you have the resources and the focus in you to move that much closer to the final objective. Use this feeling of success to propel yourself forward and take the next step. The Important thing over here is that by celebrating small success you are creating roadmap in your brain which you can at a later stage use to duplicate in other areas of your life. Remember that success always leaves clues. The smarter you are in picking up the clues and replicating it in all areas of your life is what makes a person the most successful in this wonderful journey called Life. I cannot end this article without the famous saying of Bertrand Russell “To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom”.
I do hope this article does touch your core and makes you work towards overcoming your fear. As usual, I would Love to hear from you either on my email coach@satishrao.in or on my face book Fan page www.facebook.com/B.N.Satishrao.