Our Struggles With ”Fear” & Can We Overcome Them?

Fear as described by www.dictionary.com – “a distressing emotion aroused by impending danger, evil, pain, etc., whether the threat is real or imagined; the feeling or condition of being afraid.”

The fear response is triggered in the most primitive part of the brain, the amygdala and is said to be the most powerful emotion known to mankind.  Fear is, first and foremost a survival mechanism. When we are under threat the “fear response” will cause our adrenaline to rise, our heart to beat faster, and our breathing to become short and quick, getting us ready for fight or flight.

Now, the problem is when we are experiencing a change, or trying something new for the first time as in stepping out of our comfort zone, that “fear response” can be triggered and our brain doesn’t distinguish the difference and makes us feel the same as if we were in survival mode-fight or flight.  Once we have determined that our life is not in danger, then, what do we do?  As I mentioned according to the dictionary fear is an “emotional” response.  Our emotions are a result of the thoughts we have about that experience, the meaning we assign to it – essentially, our thoughts create our fear.

4 Causes of our Fear

Everyone feels some level of anxiety or fear when stepping outside their comfort zone.  What are some of the things that we fear? 1. Fear of the unknown.  2. Fear of our ability to handle what’s new (self-doubt).  3. Fear of judgement from others.  4. Fear of failure.

How about if we looked at this from a different angle?  Instead of thinking thoughts of, “What if I fail?”, let’s take a radically different approach, “You can never fail, you can only produce results.”

You Never Fail – You Produce Results

Let’s say you are six and have decided to face your fear of playing soccer for the first time. You have decided to be brave and the ball is passed to you.  You take a mighty kick and miss the ball allowing the other team to take possession of the ball. What do you do?  Take that result and label yourself as a failure, and never play soccer again?  Or, take that result and decide that you need to practice more and take every opportunity you get to kick the ball whenever it’s passed to you? We get to choose our experience.

Thankfully, we aren’t born with these thoughts of anxiety and fear or we would all be laying around never living upright.  As an infant before you ever had any opportunity to be subjected to other people’s thoughts on what is or isn’t possible, your nature took over and you tried sitting, crawling, and walking until you mastered each task.

Another thought is, thank goodness there are many people willing to step out of their comfort zones and go after their dreams or we wouldn’t be enjoying all the comforts we presently enjoy. These brave people disregarded other’s opinions and looked at each result they produced, tweaking it until they came up with a result that they were satisfied with allowing the rest of us to enjoy their creations.

When doing something new we can choose to be terrified or, we can choose to face it with confidence. We get to decide how we want to experience situations in our life. Each time we face our fear, we get stronger. To build self-confidence, feel the fear and do it anyway.  We will always feel anxiety or fear when we step outside our comfort zone. This feeling is normal!