Do you know that you have the capacity to overcome fear?
Fear is one psychological term that affects everyone – students, graduates, career professionals, start-up entrepreneurs and even top entrepreneurs face it too.
I face fear often and I’m always in search of ways to overcome it. In this frantic search of mine, I have found some useful gems I believe would help you whichever position you find your self at any point in life. There are things I’ve learned to overcome fear every time.
It will always come, but we will always overcome it!
For most entrepreneurs and career professionals, fear comes in different shapes and sizes. It paralysis and has the capacity to terminate a project even before it starts. There is even a research which wasn’t strictly on fear but proffers a solution regardless. It was conducted by Earl Miller, a cognitive specialist and neuroscience professor at MIT. He found in his research that humans cannot focus on more than one thing at a time.
How is fear formed? How do we overcome fear?
Fear is formed when the mond focuses on the uncertainty of future outcomes. () Everyone faces it. It has the capacity to kill dreams, opportunities, sales, relationships, employee morale, etc. According to Mareo McCracken, “Confidence comes from the awareness of all the facts along with a belief in a positive outcome, no matter the uncertainty present.”
To feel fear, you have to unconsciously think about it, and once this process continues, it grows. From that research, since our brains only can consciously focus on one thing at a time, the solution to fear lies in these 3 answers: engage your mind, take action and get committed.
Number One – Engage Your Mind
Fear only grows when you allow it by consciously thinking about it. If you want to overcome it quickly, you have to deliberately engage your mind by feeding it with something else. It’s like two people dragging the steering of a car, whoever engages the gear and accelerator gets the car to move. Engaging your mind is the first and most important step because, without it, you would not be able to take action or get committed. Below are 5 ways to engage your mind.
- Read a book: Whatever book can help you change your trajectory at that point is what you should take. You can also read a blog post like this one.
- Listen to a message: When you are afraid, it is as if someone is talking to you or you are talking to yourself, so at that point, listening to a good message on the issue you are afraid of would help.
- Change your environment: The place we are at a particular point in time can contribute to the increase in fear, sometimes its important for us to just change our environment to get fresh ideas that would help us overcome.
Number Two – Take Action
Taking action is the most important way out of fear. It helps us to get out of our present position to the achievement of our goals. According to Mareo, “Since our brains only can consciously focus on one thing at a time, once you are in the act of doing, your fear fades away. Therefore, taking action reduces conscious fear.”
Apart from just taking action, there is one even more important way to defeat fear and that’s commitment.
Number Three – Commitment
Commitment is being deadly dedicated to something that nothing can take you away from it. Since fear paralyzes, how do you take action? The application of Miller’s research requires a somewhat unique approach to fear. That is where commitment comes in.
By commitment, I don’t mean making a decision or choosing a preference or sticking to the ideal, I mean being steadfast and immovable. Once you commit to something, nothing else matters.
If you are really serious about overcoming fear, you need to be committed to something. Why is that? Commitment means an action is taking place and your brain is focusing on something else besides the fear.
Hope this is helpful.
Kindly share and drop your comments.
I’m Yours truly,
Leke Ademo
