I have learned over the years that when one’s mind is made up, this diminishes fear; knowing what must be done does away with fear.” —Rosa Parks
Fear plays a huge part in all our lives it can shape our entire lives, it can stop us from fulfilling our goals, or even it can prevent us from speaking up for what we believe in I spend more time writing than filming videos as I used to fear public speaking.
It wasn’t until I realised that my fear of speaking up wasn’t doing me or the issues that I wanted to speak up about any favours that I took action and faced fear head on.
I still find it stressful btw, but I have now learnt that the fear ok.
Often we make up excuses for the reasons we avoid situations, making videos or going to events where they might be filming, or I might get asked to speak instead of looking at the underlying fears that we all harbour.
I remember going for a walk once in the lake district when my parents used to live there, and I went up this hill that I had walked up and down 50 times but coming back this time it got dark.
I felt fear as although I knew it was a straight route, the fear of what might happen as this was a new situation that I had never faced took hold, and I froze scared that I might be veering off track. Luckily I saw some car lights from a road that was the other way so decided as a safe bet to take the longer but guaranteed route to safety instead and it was a much longer route, but I was safe.
The next morning I went back to the spot that I was stuck at and saw how close I was if I had just trusted the path a few hundred more feet. Instead, I looked at the way I took, and it seemed crazy that I had gone over fences and through muddy fields.
Now with fear it doesn’t just come at times like that which are potentially life-threatening times, it occurs when we do public speaking for instance.
So how do we train ourselves to stop the fear in its tracks how do we see the route we want to take in daylight and stop seeing the dangers in the dark.
We must train just as we would in any other field we wanted to accomplish, its the 10,000-hour rule, no one can become great at anything without putting in the time and the work.
Spend time with those who have walked a similar path-
Find people who have overcome the obstacles that you want to overcome and learn from them, model their way of dealing with life’s punches.
If you spend time with negative people who have chips on their shoulders, you will most likely develop the same limiting beliefs. So find those that represent your values and beliefs, you can always read biographies if you don’t have access to influential people around you.
Start doing things that scares you-
This could be asking for a raise, taking the elevator and starting a conversation, asking someone a weird question, asking for a free coffee in a cafe, maybe join an acting class or a singing club.
Call that client that you think is going to say no, in fact, anything that you find a bit scary that you would typically avoid, just go for it!
Whatever scares you, holds the key to living a fearless life!
Stop giving a shit-
Do the above training for the sake of it, not for success, if you can avoid caring if you win or lose if you will be fearless.
In my personal journey, I choose singing as one of my challenges because it scared the hell out of me, I even had to do a solo in front of a small audience.
When I told a friend, he un-tactfully said’ but you’re a rubbish singer why would you want to do that’’, and I replied that ‘I wasn’t there to sing I was there to train for fear’, and it felt good like getting in the ring to fight and getting out the winner!
You too can live a life full of abundance but you must take action.
Fear is a learned mindset, and it needs to be unlearnt or to put it another way you need to learn confidence!
Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less
—Marie Curie
