How to Overcome Your Fears

“You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, ‘I lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.” – Eleanor Roosevelt
What keeps you up at night? A better question is what worries you and what are you afraid of? Do your worries act as a barrier, keeping you from accomplishing all you want in life?
Mark Twain once said, “My life has been filled with calamities, some of which actually happened.”
How true.
Researchers at the University of Cincinnati have found that “fully eight-five percent of what we worry about never happens.  Of the 15% that actually happens a full 79% are able to turn the situation around.”
Still, with even with this telling statistic, many people let their fears stop them from taking the action they need to do things that could prove to be worthwhile or even lucrative.
Where Do Your Fears Come From?
Fear in itself is not a bad thing. In fact, rational fears have helped to keep us alive as a species. So in order to use fear you need to understand it.
Ask yourself, “Why am I afraid? Is this a rational fear?
For example, a fear of snakes is rational, snake bites can kill us. That’s why by the age of two nearly every child is afraid of snakes.
On the other hand a fear of all dogs isn’t rational. That’s because most dogs aren’t that vicious, your mind, because of some past experience, hallucinates that they are.
You have to figure out if your fear is rational. If you find that it isn’t the first thing you need to try to understand why you have such an irrational fear. Is it because you were bit by a dog or a big dog frightened you when you were a child?
If you can’t understand or overcome your fear then seek professional help. You don’t need to have these irrational fears controlling your life.
Your Fears Can Be Empowering
Some people use fear to give them superpowers in emergency situations. When you read the story of the man who pulled a steering wheel away from another man pinned in a car that was on fire, rescuing him from a burning vehicle, the story goes on to say how the rescuers’ said facing his fear of the fire gave him the strength to bend the steering wheel and pull the other man free.
The same goes for you. Just facing your fears can give you the inner strength you need to drive you to do great things and achieve massive success.
Maybe you have a fear of public speaking. If you do, you can face and overcome that fear by joining Toastmasters or taking a class in public speaking.
As you learn to overcome your fears, you can use your successful experiences build your character. The inner strength you gain from facing and overcoming your fears can provide you with the motivation and drive you need to carry you to future successes.
How to Overcome Your Fears
There are a number of ways that you can overcome your fears.
One way to overcome a fear is to confront it head on. If you fear failing in a certain situation, then the only thing to do is to face the fear and beat it.
If you overcome that fear you’ll be motivated to take on another one.
If you fail to overcome your fear the first time, the best thing to do is to regroup and use another way to go about it. Each time you use a new method you learn what works and what doesn’t. Just add what does work the next time around.
Three Ways to Overcome Fears by Taking Your Mind Off of Them
1. Do Something Active Like Exercising
Research has shown that physical activity boosts your immune system while strengthening your mind as well as your body. As you exercise, your mind becomes a drug factory that releases hormones known as endorphins into your body. These hormones help you to feel better and promote a healthier mindset.
At the very least your physical activity can help to take your mind off your worries.
2. Make Goals and Take Action to Achieve Them
While goal setting in itself can help you overcome your fears, taking action will give you the confidence to achieve them.
Each day take the time to set goals and review your progress. As you complete them you’ll build the self -confidence you need to overcome your fears.
3. Talk About Your Fears to Someone You Know and Trust
Fears can turn into monsters if hold them inside you. As these fears build they can become bigger and bigger until they terrify and control you.
Talking about your fears helps you to get a better perspective on them which can help to relieve your worries. This also gives you the opportunity to obtain honest, caring feedback.
Overcome Your Fears = Overcome Your Worries
Worry is a habit. The best thing you can do with this habit is to let go of it. All worry does is move you toward irrational fear.
Earl Nightingale said that we go around in a fog of worries. He gave us this estimate of what most people worry about:
“Things that never happen: 40 percent. That is, 40 percent of the things you worry about will never occur anyway.”
“Things over and past that can’t be changed by all the worry in the world: 30 percent”
“Needless worries about our health: 12 percent.”
“Petty, miscellaneous worries: 10 percent.”
‘Real, legitimate worries: 8 percent. Only 8 percent of your worries are worth concerning yourself about. Ninety-two percent are pure fog with no substance at all.”
(Source: The Essence of Success by Earl Nightingale)
Worrying bogs you down and can make you second guess yourself. Your worry focus can even lead to a self-fulfilling prophecy of failure.
Stop worrying about the 92 percent of things you can’t control. Since you have no control over its outcome, why waste time worrying about it?
Worrying only add to your fears and prevents you from focusing on handling the things you can control.
You Can Overcome Your Fears and Worries
As I learned long ago when taking Psychology 101, you can’t change or control other people, places or things. You can only control yourself. Focus on what you can control.
If it’s a situation you have some control over the best thing to do is to take action. Use the techniques in this article to take your mind off your worries and then get to work and do everything in your power to solve the issue.
By taking action you will begin to focus on solutions instead of your fears and worries.  
In the end, you overcome your fears by facing them head on. As you face them, your experiences will build your self-confidence and make you stronger.
Refuse to be a slave to your fears. You can overcome your fears and lead an exciting and fulfilling life!
By: Will Dieck