Fear is often times the main reason we don’t leap for our dreams and walk life paths authentically made for us. If you’ve been wondering how to overcome fear so that you can finally make those changes that would make your life feel more right for you, then this video is for you.
Being bold and courageous enough to choose your own path is tough. But once you learn to stop rejecting fear and instead let it be part of the adventure, it becomes easier to find your way, one step at a time.
Below, you’ll find the same 4 steps mentioned in the video to help you overcome
#1 Self-confidence and self-love
No matter what type of fear you’re facing, the more confident you are, the surer you’ll feel that no matter happens, you’ll be ok.
Sure, maybe one day you and your partner will break up or maybe you’ll lose your job. I’m not saying those things might not suck, but it won’t be the end of your world. You’ll be sad for a while, but then you’ll find your way again because you are strong and sure of your abilities to find solutions and strength even in tough times.
Self-confidence is built from a solid foundation of self-love. So, although this section is really about building up your confidence in yourself, this actually starts with learning to love yourself.
How to build self-love
- Meditation
- Journaling
- Mindfulness
- Gratitude practice
- Healthy eating and physical activity
How to build self-confidence
- Knowing your values and living in line with them
- Celebrating small victories
- Dealing with inner critics
- Be who you are
2 Have realistic expectations
Sometimes fear can seem so huge because we’ve created completely unrealistic expectations about what may happen in the future and how we’ll handle it.
Let’s say that what you’d most love to do in your life is quit your fancy corporate job to become a personal trainer. After becoming clearer about the goal, you realize that a giant fear of disappointing others lies at the root of why you don’t
Have a look at your expectations. Do you expect that everyone will think you’re a complete fool? Or assume no one will understand why you’re doing it? Or worst, do you think they’ll stop loving you?
Then, if those things do happen, how do you expect that you’ll handle the situation? Do you create a mental story where you’ll perfectly handle everyone’s judgement and opinions, and flawlessly implement the career transition?
If so, maybe you’re putting too much pressure on yourself. So many of us expect perfection and for everything in life to always go 100% smoothly.
What if, instead of expecting such unrealistic outcomes, you set your sights for the road to be bumpy. You’ll quite your job, and it’ll be tough, but at the end of the day, you’ll feel empowered by having got through the challenge and finally be walking a life path you love.
Be realistic about what your expecting from yourself (ditch the annoying desire to be perfect) and stop over dramatizing how horribly the whole situation might go.
3 Befriending the fear
By digging into your inner self and becoming more aware of what it is that scares you, it becomes easier to face this intimidating beast.
Often times, our fears become so daunting because we’ve allowed our minds to focus on them constantly and greatly overdramatize how scary they’ll be to face.
Instead, take so time to better understand what this fear is all about, so that slowly, you can start untangling the mess it’s made within you.
If you’re serious about wanting to figure out how to overcome fear, learning to allow fear to be present without letting it over dominate, is a handy skill to develop.
4 Mindfulness
The more we focus on fears, the worse they get.
Usually when we’re paying attention to fears, we’re mentally creating a future outcome that may or may not happen. Basically, we’re wasting brain energy to create hypothetical situations, which only make us feel bad.
By being more mindful, we notice when we’re thinking of anything outside of the present moment, thinking about the past or worrying about the future (which is where fear stems from) and bring our awareness back onto the present moment.
We focus on the sights, sounds, smells, taste and feelings we are experiencing in this very moment.
By learning to be present, fear slowly becomes less dominate because we are giving it less attention.
Activity to help you figure out how to overcome fear
Take a few minutes and dissect a fear that stops you from making a change that might finally allow you to live more freely and more authentically.
To unravel this fear that stops you from going after your dreams, take a few minutes and write about the following things:
- 1 Give the fear a name.
- 2 Describe the fear.
- 3 Find ways to make sure that your fear doesn’t become true.
- 4 Find solutions if it does come true.
- 5 Analyze the good and bad that might happen if you do/don’t face this fear.
If you’d like to watch the video or read about how to overcome fear, but don’t have time right now, pin it here!
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