Fear Of or Fear Off?

One of the most powerful emotions for all of us have is that of fear. We all have fears and we all allow them to impact our decisions and actions in a negative way and they hold us back from achieving our full potential.

We have all heard of someone being referred to as fearless and wonder how they can be that way. Fact is, NO-ONE is fearless. These people have learnt to accept their fears and push through them. By being able to do this gives them the confidence to face their fears time and again which gives the impression they are fearless. The key here is that they face their fears and thus have fears like anyone else.

Before we tackle how to face fears, it is important to understand fear. If someone were to ask you how many fears are there in the world, that would stop you taking an action, you would probably guess hundreds or even thousands! The truth may surprise you. There generally only five. Nearly every specific fear that you can think of that would hold you back from taking an action, falls into one the 5 categories.

The 5 categories are:

1. Fear of Failure

2. Fear of Rejection

3. Fear of Success

4. Fear of Being a Fraud

5. Fear of Abandonment

Interestingly, humans are born with only 2 inborn fears. Fear of Falling and Fear of Loud Noise. These are purely instinctive, self-preserving fears that have been with us since the first caveman.

What is so important about understanding we are only born with 2 fears? It means every other fear we have is learnt post birth. Fears are learnt through bad experiences, especially as children, learnt from our parents where children become afraid of things their parents fear.

The next important aspect of fears to understand is that every fear you have is a fear of something that hasn’t happened, the fear is of something that MIGHT happen. Research has shown that 97% of the time we fear something, that which was feared didn’t happen. This means you are stopping yourself from taking an action because of something that will probably not happen.

Those that appear fearless know this, whether consciously or sub-consciously, and allows them to push through the fear factor. When facing a fear, ask yourself what exactly are you afraid of and what will happen if what you fear occurs? More often than not, if what you fear does materialize, the outcome is nowhere near as bad as what you originally feared.

It takes mental strength to acknowledge a fear, examine it in detail, understand it and then take it on and push past it, but with practice it does become easier as your confidence grows in dealing with fears. It may seem difficult to do this but the rewards are more than worth it and you will be surprised how much you can achieve in life.

To close this blog, I would like to thank Rob Dial and his amazing new book, Level Up, which inspired me to write this. He dedicates a complete chapter around this topic and I would highly recommend reading it for a more comprehensive understanding along with many other amazing topics.