How To Overcome Fear

By: Steve Yeap Click author's name for more of his/her articles

There are many types of fear: fear of failure, fear of losing, fear of darkness, fear of rejection, fear of pain, fear of height, fear of being alone, fear of being in the limelight, fear of public speaking, fear of unknown, fear of taking up new challenges, you name it, you have it.

Among the many human negative emotions such as anger, hatred, jealousy, despair, animosity, selfishness and etc, fear is by far the strongest and worst negative emotion that may severely impact on a person life. It deters a man from reaching the true destiny of life i.e. to learn and evolve to become a better, more enlightened human being.

What exactly is fear? Fear is a very strong negative emotion that is engrained on to our psychological fabric from moment of our birth and beginning of our interaction with other things in this world. A bad experience such as a traumatic shock, pain during young age may leave a deep-seated fear inside our mental and psychological makeup. Sometimes fear plays its role as a life-saver as it deters us from taking untenable danger or risk in life. However, in most cases, it cause irrational negative feeling to arise that deters us from pursuing challenges in life. As a result, many end up as a loser in life simply because they are afraid to take up challenges that may lead them to a fulfilling life.

Fear etches itself strongly into our emotional and psychological fabric. The more energy we give it, the more stronger and destructive it becomes.
In the movie Star Wars, Jedi Anakin Skywalker failed to overcome his innate 'Fear' and finally succumbed to The Dark Side to become the villainous Darth Vader.

To overcome fear, we need to clearly understand what exactly we are afraid of. There are step-by-step approaches we can adopt to set ourselves free from a particular fear.

Establish a Fear and Its Outcomes
What exactly am I afraid of and why? What is the worst case scenario that can happen if thing that I fear most indeed occurs? Write them down in detail. The more details you can put it down, the better you can analyze it and see that the fear and its consequences are very often completely irrational and illogical.

Analyze Fear
Go over point by point. Make a rational and objective analysis of the probable occurrence of events that you fear. What are the steps you can and will be taking to overcome the consequences of that outcome? What resources you have or can be reasonably obtained to counter the outcome? And if all things and efforts fail, what loss will you be facing? Is the loss bearable to you? What adjustments you have to make to overcome the loss? Get your relatives or close friends to go over the analysis together if you have problem doing an objective assessment yourself alone. Listen to their views and suggestions.

Reversing Your Relationship with Fear
After you have done an objective and rational analysis of a particular fear, taken actions and eventually overcome it, repeat the process each time you come across a fear in your life. When this practice develops into a habit, you soon realize that a fear for certain thing eventually becomes a good tool to your success. You become an expert in using initial fear to clearly analyze a situation, develop solid plan of actions, allocate resources and efforts to overcome a challenge you faced. In fact, you become master of your own destiny, not fear. In this way, initial fear for certain thing turns out to be a good compass for success.

As a human, we have the choice to act or react. After we have overcome fear by reversing its position from a dominant 'Master' to a submissive 'Slave', our life changes for the better. Soon enough we agree to the saying, "There is Nothing to Fear but Fear Itself"

Life becomes fruitful and fulfilling. We live this short life on Earth to the fullest. That is wonderful. Do you agree with me?