4 Steps to Use Fear to your Advantage
Fear is what’s stopping most people from stepping out of their comfort zone and doing extraordinary things that will boost their confidence and level up their lives.
What you are about to read, is going to give you a better understanding of your fears and how to have control over them.
Understand the Fear Recipe
- Take a great amount of negative thoughts from your imagination (preferably future ones).
- Take a dose of pain also from your imagination (it is big, so it has a place for lots of ingredients).
- Unconsciously mix the two to get a mental habit.
- Run them too often and you have your Fear.
- Run them too often and you have your Fear.
Bonne appétit!
PS: you can call that a Fear recipe or bad management of mental capacities.
Fear only wants to save your ass!
Fear is nothing but a primitive response to a stimulation in the environment that threatens survival.
You know, way before the existence of the cerebral cortex which is responsible for thinking and processing information, a region of the brain called the amygdala had a significant job; it detects emotional salience of the stimuli that is responsible for the fear response.
Acknowledge its historical importance but don’t allow it to transform into existential anxiety!
After all, we don’t live in jungles where a tiger might show up at any moment to take your life anymore. What we live in is a society that requires us to be bold and courageous to get what we want.
What’s fun is that we have that innate fear response, but we also have a cognitive process reminding us we’re OK and safe. Be conscious of that process and activate it every time you’re fearful.
Face fear, don’t over-resist it
“The thing you fear most has no power. Your fear of it is what has the power. Facing the truth really will set you free.” Oprah Winfrey
Next time you’re dealing with fear, don’t take it as a battle, that will only make it grow even more. Rather tell yourself: “Fear is here to save me, it is here to protect me and prevent me from dying.”
Then tell yourself: “Thank you ‘dumb’ emotion but there is nothing that threatens my life now, all is good.” You don’t have to put it like that… but you got the idea.
The key here is to allow yourself to get control over the fear by activating your cognitive process. You don’t have to get rid of it, just control it and do the thing you want to do anyway.
I find the example Elizabeth Gilbert gives really insightful and it goes like this: “Your fear should always be allowed to have a voice and a seat in the vehicle of your life. But whatever you do — don't let your fear DRIVE you.
View it as a growth opportunity
“Fear is a natural reaction to moving closer to the truth.” Pema Chodron
Everyone experiences fear, whether they admit it or not, it’s human. What makes the difference between people though is how they view it and the power they give it.
Now that you have the tools to not allow fear to control what you do, you can use this emotion to grow and expand your circle of comfort. The more you do, the more you can do.
Also, fear can really be your friend! Not only is it trying to keep you alive, but it’s also an opportunity for you to grow. You just have to remember that the only way to grow from fear is to step into it!
The next time you feel fear, be conscious that this is exactly what you have to step into to stretch your mental boundaries.
See it as... an indicator of areas that need work/improvement in your life. For example, you are in a gathering of people, then an idea comes to you that you know is worth telling but, here comes fear. The first thing to do is you become conscious that this is Ms.Fear visiting, then, you accept the feeling and do it anyway! Tell your idea in front of that gathering anyway. The more you practice it, the more you'll build the muscle of fearless speaking. The same thing applies to other things.
I really hope this helped!
Feel free to write in the comments below your approach to fear. How fear is impacting your life? Do you have the tools to deal with it? I’d love to read your insights.
