Ways To Deal With And Conquer Your Fears [Part 2]

As the days go by, humans are faced with one form of challenge or the other and this can predispose one to a whole new level of fear. You will agree with me that some of the things that people feared during the stone age are not the same thing that people fear in this era of advanced technological revolution. This means that some of the things that people are afraid of are relative to time and environment and were not born with them. This also means that humans can, in fact, overcome their fears. In our first episode, we considered ways to overcome one's fears and we shall be continuing in it.

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1. Focus on the good and positive side of every situation

There are always two sides to every situation in life - the positive and the negative. The part of life you focus dominantly in life will determine your lot. More so, the more you focus on one side, the less your attention on the other side. That is, if you focus on the positive side of life, you will place less emphasis on the negative side. However, what fear does is to make you to focus on the negative side and that will also mean removing your focus from the positive side. When this happens, you will see yourself not being willing to takes positive steps.

To overcome fear, you have to begin by aligning your thoughts towards the positive side of life. I normally cite the example of Neil Armstrong each time I talk about topics related to this, and how he was the first to step foot on moon. If he had considered the fact that the first crew members that would have been the first to achieve that feat went up in flames just after launching and killed all the crew members, he would not have attempted the feat. But he focused on the goal that was set before him and he was already seeing himself in moon; not wanting anything to distract him. Then he achieved his goal.

Each time fear wants to present to you the negative side of life, reply by presenting the good side of life. When fear wants to make you think "what if you try and fail?" Well, you need to take a stand and respond with "what if you try and succeed?" The more you focus on the positive side of life and the more you remind yourself that you can scale through no matter what, then you will see that the fear will begin to go down. The motivation that comes from looking at the bright side of life will create the willingness within you to take steps.

2. Look at your past achievements

When you draw your mind back to what you achieved in the past, it will give you the courage to take actions today irrespective of what fear may present to you. Obviously, if you were able to do that in the past, what makes you think that you will not be able to do it again. I once read a story about a particular shepherd boy who later turned to a warrior. During his time as a shepherd, he learnt the art of attack and defence to the extent that he could fight wild beasts that would come to attack the herds under his watch, while defending them.

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At a point, he fought and overcame a bear. The next time, a lion came and he also put up a fight against it because he had convinced himself that he was able to overcome a bear, he would also do that to a lion. When he left the shepherding, he was inducted into the army as a warrior to lead a troop. He discovered that at a particular season, there was a known giant warrior that normally came to terrorise the land. When the giant comes with his fierce troops, he would threaten them and even take some of them captives until the shepherd-turned-warrior took over.

The next time the giant came, the new warrior looked back at his antecedents of how he killed lion and bear and instead of being afraid as the other warriors, he approached him with the weapon in his hand and with just a swing, the giant was knocked completely out and defeated. He was able to achieve this because he was able to draw courage from his past achievements and moved to confront his fears. Each time a new fear comes, just remind yourself that if you could overcome similar ones in the past and if you could achieved what you did in the past, then you can do it again.

Thanks for reading