How to overcome all fears

Dear AGuide2Everything Family,

Today’s post will be about overcoming any fear you may have! Image credit goes to the film Gladiator (2000) – if you haven’t seen it – highly recommend.

Ok, now imagine a situation where you come face to face with one of your greatest fears.

For I.e., you’re about to sky-dive, you see a spider, you’re about to go on a roller coaster but you are afraid of heights, you see a snake, you’re being chased by a wild hog, etc! ( dont know about the probability of the last one, lol!)

It may be a small, or a large one, but the fact is that it’s there! In front of you!

Now, I’ve read about many stereotypical methods including “count to 3 and confront” or “imagine the situation prior to it occuring” or “make a list of pros and cons mentally” before deciding what to do in the situation.

While some of them may be effective, this blog post will be nothing like this. Do you think you will have the time and calmness to contemplate clearly while chased by a wild animal? Probably not. So what to do??

What to do?

1. Our natural instinct is to flight (run away). Here lies the problem. When we run away from something we are uncomfortable with, that fear becomes even stronger next time and we try to escape again. We are not fixing the actual problem!

1st step is to quickly decide what is the source of your fear. This should take 5 seconds max in a sudden encounter (and longer in an expected one). Organize it into a category!

Is it a fear of:

1.losing my life?

2.Losing my job?

3 Breaking a relationship?

4.What others will think of me?

5.Loosing my sanity?

Etc etc etc

If your immediate response is 1 – running away may be the right choice ( depending on the situation). If you find both bears and turtles dangerous, please – dont run the same from a turtle as from a bear. In fact – you shouldn’t run from bears at all – you should just raise your hands and surrender. Same for the turtle, it will outrun you… lol.

If you see a bear, roll into a ball and dont do anything. If you run, the bear will chase you and it wont end well.

If your reason is other than 1:

Understand that the only way to overcome a challenge is through experience. Never wait for a fear to go away on it’s own…you need to confront it – the earlier, the better.

You probably drive a car. Remember how afraid you were when you first gently pressed that gas pedal? When you thought that turn was impossible. How the car would roll back if you parked on a hill?

If you have a dog now, remember having a fear as a child that dogs bite? Cats bite? Turtles bite?

If you are a successful actor – remember that stage fright you had at first?

If you are a doctor, do you remember that initial fear of blood.

If you are a fireman, remember the times you were afraid to place your hands into a hot oven?

My friends, the way we overcome our fears is through experience. We want to avoid them, stay in our comfort zone, run away. We just dont have much exposure to these situations (which our fears entail). This is why we have fears – lack of exposure!

Live your life as to experience as many fears as possible because, the more you go through, the more fearless you become.

What is your greatest fear? How do you plan to overcome it? We are all excited to hear your stories in the comments below.

Vasil