How to Beat Your Biggest Fears with the Smallest Steps?

In our day-to-day life, we all fear something may be an object, an activity or task, a place, an animal, a person or perhaps even ourselves. Some of our fears are negligible and ignored (for example, changing our way when confronted with an animal or avoiding a person we fear) while others may be so significant that they become unavoidable and hamper our growth as an individual, causing us to stay behind in today’s competitive world.

To overcome them, you must have received several suggestions ranging from confronting your fears, attending workshops, connecting with people, reading success stories, watching talk shows, and whatnot. Believe me, these tips won't help you to bring out the fear and anxiety from the brain rather these may depress you further.?

Before we begin to eradicate our fears, let’s understand what creates this fear within us. It all starts with a threat stimulus, triggering a fear response in the amygdala (a part of our brain responsible for the emotion of fear), activating areas involved in preparation for motor functions involved in fight or flight, releasing stress hormones and the nervous system causing increased heart rate, and constricting blood vessels.?

We usually experience the fear response in three stages. Initiating with being frozen, which is an automatic response to triggered stimuli, we can’t stop it. Next is running, the adrenaline helps us move away quickly from the trigger. And finally, fight- to face the fear for which the adrenaline helps us.

Now that we know the physiological functioning behind our fears. Subsequently, we need to apprehend and work through our fears. It is not as challenging as climbing a mountain, and all it requires is a determined effort from our end.

Thus, overcoming fears can be painless if we follow short steps to overcome them.

1. Observe your fears:

Overcoming fear requires understanding the causes. If you try to identify an element that scares you the most, try breaking it into smaller levels, as it will ease your work. For example, if you are afraid of presentations, try analyzing your previous presentations and pick out acts that went wrong. If possible, ask your friends or colleagues to record your presentation videos to identify the spots you tumbled on and work on them. This will raise your confidence. So, the next time you present something, you feel the change.?

2. One step at a time:

If you are afraid of coming out of your comfort zone, trust me it's not just you but thousands of others. But do you know that fear in itself is a sign that you are out of your comfort zone? Well, yes! Understanding that fear can be a sign, you challenge yourself and push through to find strength. To begin, select an activity you dislike the most or often tend to avoid because you are uneasy with it. It can be as little as blasting a balloon or lighting a matchstick. It will increase your morale as these tiny steps will help you grow. And as you move up the ladder, you start overcoming the minute ones.?

3. Collaborate to share your fears:

Understand that you are not the only person on the planet to be afraid of something rather the entire human race is designed to be so. Studies reveal that nearly 15-20% of us experience specific phobias at least once in our life. And one of the biggest fears, according to an emotional wellness coach, that holds people back is the fear of failure. So, why to hesitate in collaborating with others to nail them together? Say, if you are afraid of going for an interview, network with people who are frightened of the same, share, and learn from their mistakes. It’s indeed an effective way to level up your performance.?

4. Improve yourself:

If you have something in your daily life that is causing fear, it might be a signal to seek self-betterment. If you encounter the same task repeatedly and are not good at it, or fear, this signals you need to direct yourself towards improvement. You can do so by learning some software or changing your style of work. Think about what you can do to meet the challenge, and prepare yourself by taking up a course or perhaps learning from seniors with past experiences.

5. New…make way!!

Are you a person who runs away from anything new that comes up or never tries your hand at something just because you fear failure? Then, here’s your shot. Before framing your opinion, commence with knowing the hows and why's of it. Grab details, and seek experiences from the ones who have tried. This will acclimatize you to changes and allow you to accept them without fear.

In practical terms, fear is a phase of the absence of knowledge. We mostly fear things because of a lack of information, leading us to formulate risky views about the problems which are otherwise not as hard to achieve as they may seem to be. However, some fears are unavoidable though most fears are simply because of our thinking. And to overcome fears practising the exercises cited above can allow you to conquer them so they don’t hamper your growth anymore.

Happy practice until you vanish all your fears, readers!