Today I would like to talk about what we all are facing daily and this prevents us from being happy, being peaceful and living our best life. And that is FEARS.
Whether you want to acknowledge or not, we all have fears because it is one of the 7 universal emotions of human which are anger, fear, sadness, happiness, disgust, surprise and contempt. But the thing about fear is it seems so scary, it triggers our anxiety and it haunts us from time to time whenever we want to do something or experiencing something.
Fear is not necessarily a bad thing because it protects us from potential threats, dangers and harms. It is meant for us to be aware and manage the situation in the safest ways possible. It is not meant for us to live our lives in a shell and stay away from all potential risks.
While cannot eliminate our fears completely but we can conquer them and accept them as part of our lives. Here are 4 steps that I use to overcome my fears:
1. Learn about our fears:
Now, just take a moment and think about it. Where do all our fears come from?
Fears can be tangible such as fear of spider, height, water etc... But most fears are intangible and it's harder to figure out such as fear of rejection, commitment, failure, judgement, loneliness etc ...
We all have different sets of fears depending on how we were being taught since we were young and also from our life experiences and what we consumed from the media.
Understanding our fears help us be aware of them and manage them better.
2. Acknowledge our fear is real but it is not our reality yet:
We need to aware that our fear triggers before anything actually happen. It comes from our imagination and overthinking but it is not our current reality. Things have not yet happened but we are just overthinking and afraid of the potential negative outcomes.
E.g. I was a socially awkward person and an introvert so speaking in public or on camera terrified me and that is because I fear judgements and failures etc... It always triggers my anxiety before I had to speak and it caused my mind to go blank and my hands to go cold. My fear told me all the bad scenarios how negative the outcomes are going to be and I could not do it.
3. Accept and Embrace it:
So in this situation, instead of avoiding speaking altogether, I acknowledge I have my fears and I accept that I will feel anxious every time I do this. But the good thing about having these fears is that help me be well prepared and focus more on my work quality so I can share quality content with my audience. So think about it, fears help us to see the potential risks so we can learn to manage our approaches better.
4. Visualise positive outcomes:
Think of what we can gain instead of what we may have to lose. As I speak more often, I learned about what I need to improve and get better at it through times. What I can gain is that I can use my voice to motivate, educate and help others in many ways. I know I will also become better at my messages, the way I deliver and many more learning opportunities for me to grow as a speaker.
And the only thing I may have to lose was my ego if I fail and receive negative comments. But feedback is part of our learning and I will still become better.
So when I visualise what I can achieve, it helps me learn to use fears to my advantage. I know I will not let fear stop me from living the life I love.