Fear: How To Use It Instead Of It Using You!

FEAR: The beast that continues to serve as a roadblock to our path to greatness. One of the most valuable lessons that I’ve learned about fear is the physiological makeup of fear. I believe that understanding fear is the basis of being able to use it to our advantage, and also as way to put fear in its place.

Our brain is hardwired to fear. Fear was used in primitive times to keep us safe. When we saw a saber-toothed tiger, our brain responded in order to tell us to “get out of there!!” In order to stay away from the path of the tiger, the brain needed to remember, so that we wouldn’t repeat that experience. That’s why we tend to remember horrible experiences more than we remember happy ones because our brain reinforces negative experiences in order to keep us from entering that situation again.

Fear is not there to work against you! Fear is there to work on your BEHALF!! Once we understand this phenomena, we can then look fear in the eyes and say, “thank you fear, but I don’t need you for this task!” Fear is not to be loathed, but respected. We still need fear when we are being chased by a dog! Our body raises our hormone levels and heart rate so that we can RUN!!!

However, when you are about to accomplish some great task that seems so big that you are not sure whether you can pull it off or not, you no longer need fear to protect you. You can talk to fear by saying, “I know that you are afraid because you want to do the best job that you can do. I know that it may seem scary to take risks, but we are ready for this. As a matter of fact, we were BORN for this!”

Let your brain and your emotions know that you were born to live big dreams. You were born to take risks and to welcome challenges in your life. When you run away from what scares you (other than the crazy dog or saber-tooth tiger), then the thought that you fear actually gets stronger, bigger, and healthier. Dealing with fear is so counterintuitive…you have to LEAN INTO IT! The only way to weaken it is to face it.

Do you remember when you stood up to that bully in school? As long as you cowered down from the bully, he/she got louder and more annoying. But once you decided that ENOUGH IS ENOUGH and you looked that bully right in the eye and said, “NO MORE!!”, the bully was bewildered and he/she just left you alone. That is the same with fear. Once you let fear know who’s boss, he will take a seat. He will know that his job is over and he can just sit down and shut up now! (Temporarily at least)

This is the question that I want to ask you: Is your fear bigger than your dreams?? If so, you get to decide that it stops today! You get to decide that fear doesn’t belong between you and the life that you want. You can tell fear to “take a seat”, and you can put your arms around your dream’s shoulders and say, “LET’S RISE.”