One of the main things that is holding people from making changes in their lives is fear. Even if we know clearly what our dream goals are, we often feel stuck. For most of us, what is holding us back from reaching our goals in life is the fear of not reaching them. Fear is our frenemy. In this post we discuss how to overcome fears, and turn your dreams in to a reality. We will explain the science behind fear and a 5-step guide to overcome fear.
We created a worksheet called Fear Fighter, which includes templates and steps to overcome your fears. You can download it from our free resource library.
Here are some related posts you might want to read:
- Happy Life – 10 Minutes Exercise For Millennials
- What It’s Like To Quit Your Job And Travel The World
- Ultimate Guide For Your Sabbatical
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What fears did you have as a kid?
Think back to when you were 5 years old. What did you want to be when you grow up?
When we’re kids, we dream to become superheroes and princesses. We say we will fly to the moon one day or have our own ice cream factory. We dream big when we are small. Where do our dreams go when we transition from childhood to teenagers and eventually adulthood?
Author and Democratic presidential candidate Marianne Williamson says, “Children are happy because they don’t have a file in their minds called ‘All The Things That Could Go Wrong.’” Our fears become our limits.
A very strong human fear is the fear of the unknown. Being uncertain about a future outcome and being afraid about any negative results that could happen, makes humans naturally very resistant to change. Yet, sometimes we need to overcome our fear of change to find happiness.
So, how do you overcome the fear of being happy?
We are afraid to be happy
Wait, what? Are you really afraid to be happy? You expected to read about how to overcome fears in this post, but you never said you had the fear to be happy. Well, read on because this is where it gets interesting.
Until today, Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is one of the most prominent theories used by psychologists to explain human motivation. Maslow tried to understand what makes people happy and the things that they do to achieve that aim. His model suggests that all our actions are motivated to achieve certain needs. People strive to fulfil basic needs before moving on to other, more complex needs.
Once we don’t suffer from hunger and have a roof over our heads, are safe from physical harm and don’t have sleepless nights worrying about money, we are longing for love and social recognition.
On top of of the pyramid is our need for Self-actualisation. In other words, our desire to unfold our full potential. This is where our dreams and goals come in. This is where we are looking for our purpose, our self-image, and the contribution we want to make to the world.
Pursuing self-actualisation
When we set out to pursue self-actualisation to be who we are really meant to be and to do the things that make us happy and fulfilled, we stop ourselves very quickly. Once our pursuit of happiness requires us to leave the beautifully safe concrete walls of our comfort zone, we freeze.
Fear can be our number one enemy of going for our goals and ambitions, and of achieving the life that we want to live. Fear creates excuses in our minds that seem wonderfully legitimate, and make us question how we could have such a seemingly insane thought of trying to change something about our status quo in the first place.
Did you hear of the ‘5 Seconds Rule’ by Mel Robbins? It says that the moment you have an instinct to act on a goal you must take action within five seconds, otherwise your brain will evoke doubts, fears, and emotions that prevent you from performing and will eventually eliminate the idea all at once.
Fear is our best frenemy
Don’t Think, Just Do It!
Not so fast, fear is a powerful and important force. It helps us to stay alive and prevents us from doing stupid stuff. Yet, while it’s normal to experience fear, most of our fears are not inherent to human nature. You will be probably surprised to read that we are born into this world with only two fears?
A baby is not afraid of anything besides loud noise and falling. These are the only two fears that are pre-programmed into our brains. Any other fear we experience has been conditioned into us, by our caretakers, peers, and often the media. Whatever fear we have, it exists because we developed it through external influences.
In total, we can differentiate fears into five main categories: the fear of extinction, mutilation, loss of autonomy, separation, and ego death. Read more here.
Fear is a complex synergy of emotions and memories
Every fear can be traced back to a negative memory.
If you are afraid of flying, it’s because you had a frightening experience in a plane, and you know that planes can crash.
Are you afraid of opening up in a relationship? It’s because you remember how you were once hurt and how painful it was.
Fearing a change in your life? For example, ditching your 9-5 job and take that trip of a lifetime. It’s because you heard about others that returned home broke and without a job to pay the bills.
Whenever we have a bad experience or hear about a negative event, our brain is linking a negative emotion to this memory or thought.
In simpler words, if I have the idea to change my life around, climb up the ladder to self-actualisation and ditch my boring 9-5 job to open up an ice cream factory. I’ll think about all the dangers associated with it:
- the risks of starting an own business;
- the last time I failed to finish something I set out to do;
- or that I recently heard in the news that the ice cream sales of the shop around the corner hit an all-time low.
What a stupid idea in the first place, better stick to that boring job!
Overcoming fear
“I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.” Nelson Mandela
The key to beating fear is to unlink the negative emotion from a memory that is associated with fear. This is a concept used by psychologists and psychotherapists to empower people to overcome their fears.
Once a negative emotion is unlinked from a memory, you don’t feel fear anymore. That means if you did go on that trip of a lifetime and see that you’re still happy and alive after one week, you’ll loosen up.
We had a the opportunity to hear Helen Tsim speak about the 5 stages of owning and overcoming fear. We liked her approach of visualising and confronting fear, which is why we would like to share it with you.
Helen Tsim holds a degree in Psychology from Harvard university and studied interpersonal connections as a consultant in various industries. The 5 steps are taken from Helen’s talk, the description and examples are our own interpretation of the concepts.
How to overcome fear in 5 steps
How to overcome fear and live your dreams
- Identify the true fear
Make a list of your fears and why you fear that fear. Ask yourself what is the worst thing that could happen if your fear proved to be true. Try to stay realistic without getting lost into painting the most horrible scenarios and the world eventually going off in flames.
- Expose your fears in safe places
Share your fears with people you trust and in an environment you feel safe in. This could be a closed friend, somebody that has been in a similar situation, or a professional.
It’s probably not the best idea to share your entrepreneurial ambitions with somebody that just lost their business or is struggling to keep their head above water. Make sure you have a safety net that can catch you and lift you up in case you fall. - Learn the necessary skills
There is a saying that says “jump before you’re ready.” and although we agree that just going for it is an effective countermeasure to overthinking, the advice is not to jump in the ocean before you learn the basic skill to swim!
In our example, get familiar with entrepreneurship, learn valuable skills that are key for running a business, build a network of partners. Get to a level where you will feel more confident to take the risk. - Reward yourself for pushing your comfort zone
Give yourself some credit and celebrate your efforts! Celebrate your first little triumph, celebrate yourself for pushing your boundaries, or even learnings you gained from failures.
Make yourself feel good for being brave. This will help linking new positive emotions to your memory and eventually unlink the emotion of fear. - Track your progress
Don’t expect to change over night! Take baby steps. Unfortunately, fear doesn’t magically disappear over night. Stay confident that it will and continue to focus on the positive. You will see a steady line of improvement until you stop thinking about it.
It’s human nature to strive for happiness. To reach the ultimate state of happiness, we strive to unfold our full potential. Fear can sometimes stand in the way to following our goals and ambitions because we are afraid of the unknown. Overcoming fear means helping our brain to unlink the negative association of an event, item, or thought from our memory. This is possible by following 5 steps.
What fear are you going to overcome next? Leave us a comment!
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