Fear is, and always has been, the greatest enemy of mankind.
When Franklin
D. Roosevelt said, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself,” he
was saying that the emotion of fear, rather than the reality of what we
fear, is what causes us anxiety, stress, and unhappiness.
When you develop the habits of courage and unshakeable self-confidence, a whole new world of possibilities opens up for you.
Develop the Habit of Courage
Fortunately,
the habit of courage can be learned just as any other habit is learned,
through repetition. We need to constantly face and overcome our fears to
build up the kind of courage that will enable us to deal with the
inevitable ups and downs of life unafraid.
The starting
point in overcoming fear and developing courage is to look at the
factors that predispose us toward being afraid. The root source of most
fear is childhood conditioning, usually associated with destructive
criticism. This causes us to develop two major types of fear.
These are the
fear of failure, which causes us to think “I can’t, I can’t, I can’t,”
and the fear of rejection, which causes us to think “I have to, I have
to, I have to.” Our fears can paralyze us, keeping us from taking
constructive action in the direction of our dreams and goals.
The More You Know, the Less You Fear
Fear is also
caused by ignorance. When we have limited information, our doubts
dominate us. We become tense and insecure about the outcome of our
actions. Ignorance causes us to fear change, to fear the unknown, and to
avoid trying anything new or different. But the reverse is also true.
The very act
of gathering more and better information about a particular subject
increases our courage and confidence in that area. You can see this in
the parts of your life where you have no fear at all because you know
what you are doing. You feel competent and completely capable of
handling whatever happens.
Analyze Your Fears
Once you have
identified the major factors that cause you to feel afraid, the next
step is to objectively define and analyze your personal fears. At the
top of a clean sheet of paper, write, “What am I afraid of?”
Remember, all
intelligent people are afraid of something. It is normal and natural to
be concerned about your physical, emotional, and financial safety and
that of the people you care about. A courageous person is not a person
who is unafraid. As Mark Twain said, “Courage is resistance to fear,
mastery of fear—not absence of fear.”
Action Exercise
Begin your
list of fears by writing down everything, major and minor, that causes
fear, stress, or anxiety. Think about the parts of your work or personal
life where your fears might be holding you back or forcing you to stay
in a job or relationship in which you are not happy. Once you have
written down your fears, arrange them in order of importance, and then
pick them apart one by one.
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