What prevents you from doing what you want and having what you want? With rare exceptions, when you get rid of all excuses, it’s fear-fear to do whatever it is you have to do to achieve your goals.

Fear is one of our most basic instincts and is key to our survival. It’s easy to dismiss fear as cowardice, but it’s not. Rather, cowardice is just one of many possible responses to fear; courage is another. Fear in and of itself is not necessarily bad. In fact, it serves a purpose by protecting life and helping us avoid danger.

Fear can make our hearts pound and our adrenaline flow. You probably know people who like to be afraid because they like what it does to their bodies: they are thrill seekers who pursue dangerous pursuits and who use their fears to achieve incredible things. Whether you like roller coasters, skydiving and mountaineering or not, you don’t have to. to enjoy afraid to make it work for you.

The key is to understand your fears and put them into perspective so that you can deal with them appropriately. When you feel afraid, before you respond, stop and find out: Is there a real danger there? If so, what exactly is the danger and what should you do to protect yourself? And if there is no real danger, what is driving the sentiment?

What are you afraid of?

What scares you? Flying? Jump from a plane? Maybe you are afraid of water. Or creatures: dogs, cats, spiders or snakes. You may be afraid of crowds or public speaking, or even of change. And it may be that you are afraid of everything that involves risk.

The reality is that life is risky. Anything worth owning will likely involve some sort of risk, whether it be physical, financial, or emotional. And it is natural that those risks generate fear. What separates the achievers from the non-achievers is that achievers know how to control and use the natural emotion of fear to their advantage.

Uncontrolled fear robs you of your self-confidence and your ability to be effective. Fear that is under control and managed can be extremely productive because it can prompt you to carefully examine risks and take steps to control and minimize them.

responding to fear

There are three basic ways to respond to fear:

1. Ignore him.

2. Avoid it.

3. Face it.

Simply ignoring the fear, for example, thinking “I’m afraid to do this, but I’m going to go through with it,” is the least effective way to respond to feelings of fear. You can’t completely ignore your fear because if you don’t face it, it will always be on your mind, causing you stress and blocking your ability to perform your best.

Denying the fear, insisting that you are not really afraid, that you just “don’t want to do” it, is a way of ignoring it. If you know that taking a particular action could produce the results you want but refuse to do so, do a careful self-examination to determine if you are really denying a fear.

Avoiding fear is only slightly better than ignoring it. At least when you avoid fear, you have recognized it and are trying to push it aside and avoid it. But that’s just a temporary fix for a long-term problem.

What works best in both the short and long term is to confront your fears and overcome them. Acknowledge what you fear, take advantage of it, face it, and work to achieve the desired result. In the process, you destroy fear.

Confronting your fear allows you to shed light on it, and when you do, you’ll often see that the fear isn’t real. Think back to when you were a kid and you thought monsters were lurking under your bed or in your closet. Your parents would come in, turn on the light, and you could see that there were no monsters. Illuminating adult fears isn’t always that simple, but it’s just as effective. For example, let’s say you’d like to make an investment, but fear holds you back. Shine a light on that. What are you really afraid of? What is the worst that can happen? Now, what can you do to reduce the risk? And if you do that, is your fear still valid?

Remember that on the other side of every fear is freedom, achievement and peace.

The most common fears

We like to believe that we are special and unique, but when it comes to fear, we are rarely alone in a class. The fears that tend to prevent most of us from reaching our goals include the fear of failure and its companion fear of success; fear of ridicule; fear of discomfort; and even fear of being the center of attention. Let’s look at each of them.

The fear of failure is completely understandable. Nobody likes to fail. We don’t want to let ourselves or others down. But just because you make a mistake or don’t succeed right away doesn’t mean you’ve failed. The main way we solve life’s problems is through trial and error. When you make a mistake, you have not failed, you have simply learned a strategy that did not work. None of the great inventions we take for granted today were successful on the first try. Even the best athletes don’t always score. Put your fear of failure in this context: some of the things you try won’t work, but all that means is that those particular things you did didn’t work. As long as you try again, you did not fail and you are not a failure.

Let’s look at the opposite side of the fear of failure and consider the fear of success. The fear of success can be almost as paralyzing as the fear of failure, and often follows when you have conquered the fear of failure. Some people let the fear of success sabotage their efforts because they are afraid of what might happen when they succeed. Success can be both intoxicating and terrifying. Conquer your fear of success with a plan to manage your success.

Another common fear is that of ridicule. We don’t want to be made fun of. You can’t control what other people think and say, but you can control how you react to it. Of course, ignoring ridicule is much easier said than done, especially when the ridicule comes from someone we care about. It helps to try to understand what drives the ridicule: Most people who ridicule others try to mask their own weaknesses and fears. Consider dispelling ridicule with a semi-agreement: “Sure, I might be crazy to try, but at least I’m trying, and you never know, I might succeed.” And when you do, you won’t have to say a word.

The fear of discomfort can be quite powerful. Most of us like to stay in our comfort zone with familiar people and things. It’s certainly easier to do what’s comfortable, like watching TV instead of going to the gym or staying in a dead-end job rather than doing whatever it takes to get out of it. But doing what’s comfortable today will likely result in something worse than discomfort tomorrow. Staying comfortable means staying in the routine and not striving for something better.

It’s also understandable to fear being the center of attention. Every day we see the most intimate details of the lives of politicians and celebrities exposed to the scrutiny of strangers, and while scandals and gossip may intrigue us, we don’t want to be under that microscope ourselves. Fortunately, most of us don’t have to seriously worry about it. But you may be afraid of being the center of attention, even in a small way, like having to present in front of a group or even being recognized for an achievement. With practice and preparation, you can overcome your fear of being the center of attention.

Use the incredibly powerful visualization tool. If you focus on your fear and visualize the worst happening, it will certainly happen. Instead, visualize your success and the results you want, then see yourself taking the steps that will make that happen. When the time comes to do whatever is scaring you, you’ll be relaxed and confident because you’ve done it before in your mind and you know it’s going to work.

It is also important to recognize that fear is contagious. You can catch other people’s fears. Sometimes these people are afraid because they really want to protect you; other times, they express fear that they expect you to stop it because they fear you will succeed in revealing your own shortcomings. In any case, you need to give yourself a mental vaccination to protect yourself from other people’s fears.

Unfortunately, for most of us, conquering fear is not something we can do once and then never have to face again. Fear is a normal emotion that you will experience over and over again. The key is not to let your fears scare you into inaction, but to use them to prepare yourself to achieve your goals.