t is a rare person who lives without fear of one kind or another.
You may fear heights, or spiders, or new situations, or
rejection-whatever your fears may be, you can either let those
fears form boundaries beyond which you can't move or grow, or you
can face them head-on and allow them to become opportunities to
move into new places in your life. The choice is truly yours.
But if our fears control us, or prevent us
from taking certain risks, we allow those fears to define us, to
limit us only to courses of action that we deem sufficiently safe,
and as a result, many of us never achieve our potential-or we cheat
ourselves out of the richness that life could otherwise hold for us.
______________________________
1. Realize that everyone is afraid of something.
Others may not fear the same things you fear, but everyone fears
something, and understanding this can help you not to feel isolated
in your fear. You're not alone, and the fact that you are fearful
in some area doesn't make you a weak person.
Try this: find someone to talk to about your fears-you may find
that someone else has faced the same fears as you, and has found a
way through them that can help you.
______________________________
2. You don't have to overcome your fear all at once.
If you are fearful of public speaking, for example, you may not
want to begin addressing this fear by booking a speaking gig in
front of a thousand people.
Try this: write down something you are afraid of, some fear you
want to overcome, and make a list of three small steps you think
you CAN make to begin facing up to your fear. Choose one and do it
tomorrow.
______________________________
3. Approach your fears as opportunities for growth.
You don't really want to be afraid, do you? If you think about
what your life might be like if you weren't afraid of that thing,
whatever it is, you know that things would be better. If you look
beyond the fear to the benefits of overcoming the fear, you may see
a world that might just be worth taking some risk to live in.
Take a few minutes and make a list of the pros and cons of dealing
with the thing that you're afraid of:
* What are the potential benefits of overcoming that fear?
* How might your life be different if you weren't afraid of it?
* What would you be free to do that you aren't free to do now
because of your fear?
* What do you have to lose by giving up that fear?
If you can objectively appraise the advantages to moving past your
fear, you may come to see your fear as an opportunity to grow.
The adage, "nothing ventured, nothing gained," and all of its various
permutations (e.g., "no guts, no glory") are based on the
time-tested principle that we can't grow if we don't allow
ourselves to be stretched.
You know this is true in the physical realm-a muscle that isn't
regularly used eventually atrophies and becomes useless-and it is
no less true in other areas of our lives.
Try this: write a paragraph or two about how your life will be
different when you overcome that fear that has dogged you for so
long, and why the potential benefits are worth some risk.
______________________________
4. Be careful how you talk to yourself about what you fear.
Sometimes we are fearful of what we imagine might happen if we step
outside of our comfort zone. It's all too easy to convince
yourself that your reasons for being afraid are all valid.
I once heard a wise man say, "More important than what happens to
us is how we talk to ourselves about what happens to us."
This is so true-we can imagine all sorts of negative things when we
contemplate something we're afraid of, but this doesn't make those
things real.
It is entirely natural to be fearful of the unknown. You don't
know what might happen if you make that phone call to the person
who intimidates you, or you're not sure how the boss might react if
you really speak your mind.
Why not go ahead and make a list of the possible outcomes?
What do you really have to lose if you take the risk?
Seeing that list on paper may help you see how irrational some of
your fears really are. Don't forget to include in your list the
possibility that things might turn out for the better.
Try this: instead of convincing yourself to believe the worst
about something you fear, try imagining the best.
______________________________
5. Failure isn't necessarily the end of the world.
If there is one fear that is common to nearly all of us, it is the
fear of failure. While there are some scenarios in which failure
is potentially devastating, or perhaps even life-threatening, most
of the time it isn't. Yet the fear of failure short-circuits
ideas, stymies careers and deprives us of experiences and
opportunities that could enrich our lives.
If you have an idea and don't try it for fear of failure, you've
just given someone else the chance to try it instead-and someone
else will, if you don't.
Thomas Edison is often credited with the invention of the incandescent
light bulb in 1878, but the truth is that the light bulb was actually
invented decades earlier.
In 1802, Sir Humphrey Davy discovered that electricity could make a
thin strip of platinum glow and give off light, but because
platinum was so expensive, he didn't develop the idea much further.
In 1840, James Bowman Lindsay put a platinum filament into a glass
bulb and removed most of the air so that the filament wouldn't
oxidize, and thus the first working light bulb was created. But
again, the expense of platinum prevented him from producing the
bulb commercially. Edison came along more than 30 years later,
bought the previous patents, and experimented with thousands of
different materials for filaments that could be commercially
produced, eventually developing a filament from carbonized bamboo
that would last for 1200 hours. He didn't stop there-Edison went
on to design an electric power distribution system that would make
the use of light bulbs practical and profitable.
One could argue that all but one of Edison's attempts to perfect
the electric light bulb was a failure. Edison considered each
failed filament to be an important lesson-he had learned yet
another material that would not work. But perhaps more
importantly, he didn't let the road blocks that others had met
deter him.
Our failures can be dead-ends or learning experiences that can lead
us to try other routes to success, depending on how we treat them.
"If at first you don't succeed, try, try again." That's a very old
saying, but it's great advice.
Try this: if you're afraid to fail at something, make yourself a
list of the things you can try if you do fail at first. It never
hurts to plan ahead. (They put redundant systems on the Space
Shuttle for this very reason.)
So What are You Afraid Of???
You may fear heights, or spiders, or new situations, or
rejection-whatever your fears may be, you can either let those
fears form boundaries beyond which you can't move or grow, or you
can face them head-on and allow them to become opportunities to
move into new places in your life. The choice is truly yours.
But if our fears control us, or prevent us
from taking certain risks, we allow those fears to define us, to
limit us only to courses of action that we deem sufficiently safe,
and as a result, many of us never achieve our potential-or we cheat
ourselves out of the richness that life could otherwise hold for us.
______________________________
1. Realize that everyone is afraid of something.
Others may not fear the same things you fear, but everyone fears
something, and understanding this can help you not to feel isolated
in your fear. You're not alone, and the fact that you are fearful
in some area doesn't make you a weak person.
Try this: find someone to talk to about your fears-you may find
that someone else has faced the same fears as you, and has found a
way through them that can help you.
______________________________
2. You don't have to overcome your fear all at once.
If you are fearful of public speaking, for example, you may not
want to begin addressing this fear by booking a speaking gig in
front of a thousand people.
Try this: write down something you are afraid of, some fear you
want to overcome, and make a list of three small steps you think
you CAN make to begin facing up to your fear. Choose one and do it
tomorrow.
______________________________
3. Approach your fears as opportunities for growth.
You don't really want to be afraid, do you? If you think about
what your life might be like if you weren't afraid of that thing,
whatever it is, you know that things would be better. If you look
beyond the fear to the benefits of overcoming the fear, you may see
a world that might just be worth taking some risk to live in.
Take a few minutes and make a list of the pros and cons of dealing
with the thing that you're afraid of:
* What are the potential benefits of overcoming that fear?
* How might your life be different if you weren't afraid of it?
* What would you be free to do that you aren't free to do now
because of your fear?
* What do you have to lose by giving up that fear?
If you can objectively appraise the advantages to moving past your
fear, you may come to see your fear as an opportunity to grow.
The adage, "nothing ventured, nothing gained," and all of its various
permutations (e.g., "no guts, no glory") are based on the
time-tested principle that we can't grow if we don't allow
ourselves to be stretched.
You know this is true in the physical realm-a muscle that isn't
regularly used eventually atrophies and becomes useless-and it is
no less true in other areas of our lives.
Try this: write a paragraph or two about how your life will be
different when you overcome that fear that has dogged you for so
long, and why the potential benefits are worth some risk.
______________________________
4. Be careful how you talk to yourself about what you fear.
Sometimes we are fearful of what we imagine might happen if we step
outside of our comfort zone. It's all too easy to convince
yourself that your reasons for being afraid are all valid.
I once heard a wise man say, "More important than what happens to
us is how we talk to ourselves about what happens to us."
This is so true-we can imagine all sorts of negative things when we
contemplate something we're afraid of, but this doesn't make those
things real.
It is entirely natural to be fearful of the unknown. You don't
know what might happen if you make that phone call to the person
who intimidates you, or you're not sure how the boss might react if
you really speak your mind.
Why not go ahead and make a list of the possible outcomes?
What do you really have to lose if you take the risk?
Seeing that list on paper may help you see how irrational some of
your fears really are. Don't forget to include in your list the
possibility that things might turn out for the better.
Try this: instead of convincing yourself to believe the worst
about something you fear, try imagining the best.
______________________________
5. Failure isn't necessarily the end of the world.
If there is one fear that is common to nearly all of us, it is the
fear of failure. While there are some scenarios in which failure
is potentially devastating, or perhaps even life-threatening, most
of the time it isn't. Yet the fear of failure short-circuits
ideas, stymies careers and deprives us of experiences and
opportunities that could enrich our lives.
If you have an idea and don't try it for fear of failure, you've
just given someone else the chance to try it instead-and someone
else will, if you don't.
Thomas Edison is often credited with the invention of the incandescent
light bulb in 1878, but the truth is that the light bulb was actually
invented decades earlier.
In 1802, Sir Humphrey Davy discovered that electricity could make a
thin strip of platinum glow and give off light, but because
platinum was so expensive, he didn't develop the idea much further.
In 1840, James Bowman Lindsay put a platinum filament into a glass
bulb and removed most of the air so that the filament wouldn't
oxidize, and thus the first working light bulb was created. But
again, the expense of platinum prevented him from producing the
bulb commercially. Edison came along more than 30 years later,
bought the previous patents, and experimented with thousands of
different materials for filaments that could be commercially
produced, eventually developing a filament from carbonized bamboo
that would last for 1200 hours. He didn't stop there-Edison went
on to design an electric power distribution system that would make
the use of light bulbs practical and profitable.
One could argue that all but one of Edison's attempts to perfect
the electric light bulb was a failure. Edison considered each
failed filament to be an important lesson-he had learned yet
another material that would not work. But perhaps more
importantly, he didn't let the road blocks that others had met
deter him.
Our failures can be dead-ends or learning experiences that can lead
us to try other routes to success, depending on how we treat them.
"If at first you don't succeed, try, try again." That's a very old
saying, but it's great advice.
Try this: if you're afraid to fail at something, make yourself a
list of the things you can try if you do fail at first. It never
hurts to plan ahead. (They put redundant systems on the Space
Shuttle for this very reason.)
So What are You Afraid Of???
hmm..so true..
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