How to Overcome Your Fear: 7 Tips from the Last 2200 Years

“Fears are educated into us, and can, if we wish, be educated out.”
Karl Augustus Menninger

“The enemy is fear. We think it is hate; but, it is fear.”
Mahatma Gandhi

What is holding you back?

Whatever you answer, it will in many cases boil down to fear in some form.

Now, fear can be useful to keep yourself alive. But many times, especially if you live a life where you have the possibility to reading these words, fear is just a big obstacle in your path.

But what can you do about fear? How can you overcome it?

In this article we explore a few of the timeless things that people have learned about that throughout the last few thousands of years.

1. Face your fear to become stronger.

“I must not fear.
Fear is the mind-killer.
Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
I will face my fear.
I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
Where the fear has gone there will be nothing.
Only I will remain.”
Frank Herbert

“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 have lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.’ You must do the thing you think you cannot do.”
Eleanor Roosevelt

Every time you face a fear you gain the 3 important qualities that Eleanor Roosevelt mentions above. And the next thing that comes along will be easier to handle.

And if you have to handle a big fear, whatever it may be, and later realise you actually survived it, many things in life you may have feared previously seems to shrink. Those fears become smaller. They might even disappear.

You might think to yourself that what you thought was a fear before wasn’t that much to be afraid of at all. Everything is relative. And every triumph, problem, fear and experience becomes bigger or smaller depending to what you compare it to.

But to gain a wider perspective of human experience and grow you really have to step up and face your fear.

2. Facing your fear can be surprisingly anticlimactic.

“When a resolute young fellow steps up to the great bully, the world, and takes him boldly by the beard, he is often surprised to find it comes off in his hand, and that it was only tied on to scare away the timid adventurers.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson

This is perhaps my favourite quote about fear. From a distance and in you mind things may seem very difficult and frightening. But when you actually step up and take action I think many of us have been surprised of how the beard of that bully just comes off. Why? Let’s move on to the next tip…

3. Take action and get busy.

“Inaction breeds doubt and fear. Action breeds confidence and courage. If you want to conquer fear, do not sit home and think about it. Go out and get busy.”
Dale Carnegie

“Worry gives a small thing a big shadow.”
Swedish proverb

You can’t sit around think and waiting for courage and confidence to come knocking on the door. If you do, you may just experience the opposite effect. The more you think, the more fear you build within.

We often build scary monsters in our heads.

Maybe because of things we have learned from the news, the TV or the movies. Or we just think so much about something that our minds start to create totally unlikely horror scenarios of what may happen.

As you may have noticed in your own life, 80-90 percent of what we worry about never really comes into reality. Instead things can become anticlimactic when we take action. The beard of the bully comes off surprisingly easy if we just step up and take action.

And many times we get the courage we need after we have done what we feared. Not the other way around.

4. Fear is often based on unhelpful interpretation.

“Fear: False Evidence Appearing Real.”
Unknown

As humans we like to look for patterns. The problem is just that we often find negative and not so helpful patterns in our lives based on just one or two experiences. Or by misjudging situations. Or through some silly miscommunication.

When you get too identified with your thoughts you’ll believe anything they tell you. A moe helpful practise may be to not take your thoughts too seriously. A lot of the time they and your memory are pretty inaccurate.

But this is a good thing too.

Because it opens you up to re-examining old beliefs you have based on experiences you may have interpreted in not the most helpful way. It opens you up to try again and see what happens this time instead of staying stuck in thought, inaction and fear.

5. Don’t cling to your illusion of safety.

“Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. The fearful are caught as often as the bold.
Helen Keller

“Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature…. Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.
Helen Keller

Why do people sit on their hands? Is it just because they become paralyzed with fear? I’d say no. Another big reason why people don’t face their fears is because they think they are safe where they are right now. But the truth is what Keller says; safety is mostly a superstition. It is created in your mind to make you feel safe. But there is no safety out there really. It is all uncertain and unknown.

You may get laid off.
Someone may break up with you and leave.
Illness will probably strike.
Death will certainly strike in your surroundings and at some point come to visit you too.
Who knows what will happen?

This superstition of safety is not just something negative. It’s also created by your mind so you can function in life. No point in going all paranoid about what could happen a minute from now day in and day out. But there is also not that much point in clinging to an illusion of safety. So you need to find balance where you don’t obsessed by the uncertainty but also recognize that it is there and live accordingly.

As you stop clinging to your safety life also becomes a whole lot more exciting and interesting. You are no longer as confined by an illusion and realize that you set your limits for what you can do and to a large extent create your own freedom in the world. You are no longer building walls to keep yourself safe as those walls wouldn’t protect you anyway.

6. Be curious.

“Curiosity will conquer fear even more than bravery will.”
James Stephens

When you are stuck in fear you are closed up. You tend to create division in your world and mind. You create barriers between you and other things/people.

Curiosity on the other hand is filled with anticipation and enthusiasm. It opens you up. And when you are open and enthusiastic then you have more fun things to think about than focusing on your fear.

Curiousness also opens you up to gain understanding of something. And with understanding vague, fog-like fears disappears.

The emotions you experience are often as a result of what you focus your mind on. Change what you focus on about something and you can change your emotions about that thing.

How do you become more curious? One way is to remember how life has become more fun in the past thanks to your curiosity and to remember all the cool things it helped to discover and experience. And then to work at it. Curiosity is a habit. The more curious you are the more curious you become. And over time it becomes more of a natural part of you.

7. Remove separation. Remove fear.

“Who sees all beings in his own self, and his own self in all beings, loses all fear.”
Isa Upanishad, Hindu Scripture

The ego wants to divide your world. It wants to create barriers, separation and loves to play the comparison game. The game where people are different compare to you, the game where you are better than someone and worse than someone else. All of that creates fear. Doing the opposite removes fear.

That there is no real separation between beings, that we are one and the same, might sound a bit corny.

But one thought you may want to try for a day is that everyone you meet is your friend.

Another one is to see what parts of yourself you can see in someone you meet. And what parts of yourself you can see in him/her.

There is often an underlying frame of mind in interactions. Either it asks us how we are different to this person. Or how we are the same as this person. The first frame is based in how the ego likes to judge people and create separation to strengthen itself (either through feeling better or more like a victim). The second one creates warmth, an openness and curiosity within. There is no place to focus on fear or judgement anymore.

This is of course not easy, especially if you have held the first frame of mind for many years. But you can get insight into this by doing the rest of the things above. As you face your fears the barriers and separation you have built in your mind decreases. You come closer and feel more of a connection to other people.

With action, curiousness and understanding we come closer to each other. We gain a greater understanding of ourselves and others. And so it becomes easier to see them in you. And you in them.

This above all - to thine own self be true...
-Shakespeare

The following is an excerpt from Money Success & You, a book by John Kehoe.

A recent national poll revealed that more than 80 percent of North America's working population do not enjoy the work they do. This is a profoundly tragic statistic, considering that work consumes so much of our lives. Nor is it a good formula for success, because when you study closely people who are successful it becomes abundantly clear that their achievements are directly related to the enjoyment they derive from their work.

This really struck home for me while I was writing this book. Since this is a book about money and success, I decided to send each of my financially successful friends (those with assets over $1 million) a copy of the manuscript so that I could get their feedback. As I finished my list and was reading over the names, I suddenly realized that every single one of them had achieved their success in areas they enjoyed working in - one was in publishing, another was a jewelry wholesaler, one in law, still another in home renovating - and so it went. They had found their passion, devoted themselves to it and had prospered. Every single one of them was doing what they loved doing.

It got me thinking: Has anybody ever made a fortune doing what he or she dislikes? I thought about it for a while and you know what? I couldn't think of anyone. Not one. This is something to seriously ponder if you presently find yourself trying to get ahead working at an occupation you dislike.

Do What You Love; the Money Will Follow

Lars-Eric Lindblad loves traveling. As he backpacked his way to some of the more exotic locations around the world, he thought of what he would do when he eventually returned home. Nothing seemed appealing; and then he suddenly had an idea. "There are probably others like myself," he thought, "who want to experience a more adventurous type of travel. Why not start a business to cater to their specific needs?" So that's what he did. He started his own travel agency, Lindblad Travel, offering adventurous trips to offbeat locations-the Gobi Desert, Antarctica, the Galapagos Islands. People in the travel industry told him he was sure to fail. "You can't make money offering just adventure packages," they said, almost unanimously. This was before exotic travel became fashionable. Lars was one of the first to venture into this field and succeed he did, in a very big way. And 500,000 customers later, his travel business is still booming. Here's the lesson for those of you who wish to follow your dream: the real key to Lindblad's success is that he chose something that he was excited about, something he believed in.

Peter Moore hated his job as a bank manager. Although he liked dealing with people, he felt stuck in his choice of occupations and felt he wasn't using his talents to the maximum. He wanted more. Realizing that his people skills would be well suited to sales, he began thinking of a career in selling. But selling what? Then one day, as he was handling the affairs of a woman whose husband had recently died, it hit him. Why not sell life insurance?

Peter's experience as a bank manager had given him experience in dealing with families who are left without proper financial support. He believed absolutely in the service and excitedly began researching all the available companies to see which ones had the best policies. When he had made his decision, he approached the sales manager and told him what he'd done and why he wanted to sell life insurance for them. He was given a job on the spot.

Within one year he became one of their top salesmen, and eventually he became their district sales manager for the entire West Coast. He succeeded because he found something he could do with conviction. Something that felt right. He found his passion.

Stephen Sandler thought his grandmother's mustard was the best in the world. Nothing else he had ever tasted even came close. Everyone else who tasted it at his house said the same. Then, one day, he had a wild idea. "Why not bottle it and sell it?" But then came the doubts. "There are already lots of brands of mustard available. I have no real business experience. There's stiff competition for shelf space. Why would they give an unknown a chance?" And there were hundreds of other reasons why not to do it. But Stephen genuinely believed his grandmother's mustard was better than anything else available, and this thought kept nagging at him. So he decided to give it a try.

He made twelve jars, had some labels printed, and went to visit several local delicatessens. He told them he already had a company that produced the mustard and offered them a free jar as a sample. Much to his surprise, Stephen received an order for 120 jars from one of them.

"At six jars an hour," he laughed, "I didn't think I'd ever get through that first order." He started by making it in his own kitchen and eventually the operation took over the house. Then he had to move to larger premises. Sandler Mustard is now sold in delicatessens all across the country and his small company, just barely out of its infancy, is now worth over $2 million. Stephen Sandler found his passion - mustard - and he made it his livelihood.

"People whose whole objective is making money, usually don't," says Jerry White, professor of entrepreneurial studies at the University of Toronto, Canada. He should know. He's made it his business to study successful entrepreneurs and to teach others their winning ways, and the one message that came through loud and clear in his research was: Find a product or service you can believe in passionately, because without this you will not succeed.

What is your calling? To what areas are you best suited? How can you find a livelihood that will nourish and fulfill you?

You start by simply believing in yourself. Take stock of your assets, your strong points, and then see how you can best use them. Very often it's a lack of self-confidence that keeps us in positions we don't like. If this is the case then embark upon a daily program designed to build self-confidence. Make this your first priority, and once this is achieved, your perspectives too will change.

Who am I? What are my possibilities?

You may think of yourself as a parent or spouse or in terms of your present job or profession, but that is only a part of who you are. Beyond this what are your possibilities? You have talents and strengths. You have natural inclinations towards certain subjects, while others have no interest to you. You have activities that bring you pleasure and others that you disdain. In fact you are quite unique, and this uniqueness can be your compass. Trust it and let it lead you.

Remind yourself that you possess a powerful subconscious mind that will guide you. Go to it daily, instructing it to bring you the answers you are looking for.

Make Lists:

• Write down all the activities that give you pleasure.
• Write down your mental assets and strengths, your past and present accomplishments.
• Write down choices that you would make for yourself if money were not an issue and careers that sound interesting regardless of whether you think you have the talent or opportunity to pursue them.
• Open up your mind to options and possibilities. Dare to dream. There are no boundaries except those that exist in your mind. As media tycoon Rupert Murdoch said, "Fortune favors the bold."

The choice of how to make a living is perhaps the single most important of all our decisions, yet it's often the one most neglected. Sometimes we feel we have to take a job because of financial needs, or we are steered into a career because it has "excellent prospects," when really our heart isn't in it. This is unfortunate and totally unnecessary when you realize how many options are available to you. Certainly in any given period of several months or even several years you might have to work at something you don't enjoy to make ends meet, to pay off debts or just to get started, but new opportunities will always present themselves to you if you are open and receptive to them. Don't ever sell yourself short. You deserve more than just a job.

No amount of money, no matter how much it is, will ever compensate you sufficiently for remaining in a job that is drudgery and robs you of your spirit, or one that prevents you from fulfilling a dream. As the old saying goes, "In your haste to make a living don't forget to make a life." Be bold; forge off in a direction that you have a passion for.

That's exactly what Dominic Chang did. An avid golfer, he often felt guilty about putting golf ahead of his family, and he suspected millions of other golfers felt the same way. So in 1992 he quit his job at the Bank of New York, where he was a senior vice-president, to follow his instinct and passion. He raised the money to open Family Golf Centers Inc. The basic tenet of his business plan: Encourage golfers to bring their spouses and children along with them to the centers. Have party rooms, snack bars, restaurants, miniature golf, so that it is exciting for everyone to come, male, female, young and old. His first center was a big hit and was soon followed by others. Now his company has gone public and Dominic's three million shares are worth close to $100 million. Not bad for six years worth of work, or should I say six years of passion.

Everyone has his or her own specific vocation or mission in life. It cannot be replaced by something else, nor can someone else do it for you. Everyone's task is to discover his or her uniqueness and find an opportunity to implement it.

Life is filled with choices and opportunities, so follow your heart, your instinct. Find something you can be passionate about and devote yourself to it. This is where your personal fulfillment as well as your contribution to the world lies.

Joseph Campbell says it well: "Your whole physical being knows that this [following your passion] is the way to be alive in this world and the way to give to the world the very best that you have to offer. There is a track just waiting there for each of us, and once on it, doors will open that were not open before and would not open for anyone else."

"Every calling is great when greatly pursued," said Oliver Wendell Holmes. Whether you're selling life insurance, designing buildings, managing a company, writing a book, marketing new products or cutting hair, find the passion and excitement in it. If you can, you will succeed like you never have before. Follow your dream. Trust your instincts. Find that something you can believe in passionately and give it your all. Do what you love; the money will follow.

Be True to Yourself

Men waste themselves in excesses; in bad tempers, hatreds, gluttonies, and unworthy and unlawful pleasures, and then blame life. They should blame themselves.

A man should have more self-respect than to abuse his nature in any way. He should command himself always; should avoid excitement and hurry; should be too noble to give way to anger, to resent the actions and opinions of others, or fruitlessly to argue with an abusive and cantankerous assailant.

A quiet, unobtrusive, and unoffending dignity is the chief mark of a ripe and perfect manhood. Honor others and respect yourself. Choose your own path and walk it with a firm, unflinching step, but avoid a meddlesome interference with others. In the true man opposing qualities are blended and harmonized; a yielding kindness accompanies an unbending strength. He adapts himself gently and wisely to others without sacrificing the steadfast principles upon which his manhood is built. To have that iron strength that can go calmly to death rather than yield one jot of truth, along with that tender sympathy that can shield the weak and mistaken enemy, is to be manly with a divine manhood.

Be true to the dictates of your own conscience, and respect all who do the same, even though their conscience should lead them in a direction the reverse of your own. One of the most unmanly tendencies is to pity another because he chooses opinions or religion contrary to those of one's self. Why pity a man because he is an agnostic, or an atheist, or a Buddhist, or a Christian? Because he does not hold this opinion or that belief? Such pity should be rightly named contempt. It is the office of pity to feel for the weak, the afflicted, and the helpless.

Pity never says "I pity you"; it does kind deeds. It is superciliousness that professes pity for the strong, the self-reliant, for those who have the courage to mark out their own path and to walk it boldly. Why should he be forced to hold my opinion or yours? If what I say and do appeal to his reason and conscience as right, then he will be one with me and will work hand and hand with me. But if my work be not his work, he is nonetheless a man. He has his duty, though it not be my duty. When I meet one who is self-respecting, and who dares to think for himself, I will salute him as a man, and not harbor in my heart a contemptible pity for him, because, indeed, he rejects my conclusions.

If we are to be responsible, self-acting beings in a law-begotten universe, let us be masters of our own wills, and respect the free will of others. If we are to be strong and manly, let us be large-hearted and magnanimous. If we are to triumph over the miseries of life, let us rise superior to the pettiness of our nature.

The Nature and Power of Mind

MIND IS THE ARBITER of life. It is the creator and shaper of conditions, and the recipient of its own results. It contains within itself both the power to create illusion and to perceive reality. Mind is the infallible weaver of destiny. Thought is the thread, good and evil deeds are the "warp and woof" or foundation, and the web, woven upon the loom of life, is character. Mind clothes itself in garments of its own making.

Man, as a mental being, possesses all the powers of mind, and is furnished with unlimited choice. He learns by experience, and he can accelerate or retard his experience. He is not arbitrarily bound at any point, but he has bound himself at many points, and having bound himself he can, when he chooses, liberate himself.

He can become bestial or pure, ignorant or noble, foolish or wise, just as he chooses. He can, by reoccurring practice, form habits, and he can, by renewed effort, break them off. He can surround himself with illusions until Truth is completely lost, and he can destroy each of those illusions until Truth is entirely recovered. His possibilities are endless; his freedom is complete.

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