5 Practical Steps to Help You Minimize Fear and Open Up Your Life Today


Image by Ben Fredericson (xjrlokix) (license).

[hana-code-insert name=’socialbuttons’ /]“When a resolute young fellow steps up to the great bully, the world, and takes him boldly by the beard, he is often surprised to find it comes off in his hand, and that it was only tied on to scare away the timid adventurers.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson

What is holding you back from trying new things and improving your life in big or small ways in your daily life?

When you boil it down it is most often not about anything outside of you. Or that is at least not the biggest reason why you feel paralyzed. It’s the fear that gets to you.

It holds you back from trying something new for lunch, a new place for the evening out or a new hobby because you feel somewhat afraid that you’ll have a bad experience. So you stick to your usual routine.

It holds you back from asking someone for a date or number because you don’t want to risk being rejected or looking like a fool in front of people. So you don’t take the next step.

You stay where you are and new directions in your life remain unexplored.

This is of course very human. But fear doesn’t have to stop you from exploring life.

Now, let me share what I do to minimize my fear and to be able to move from feeling overwhelmed or paralyzed into taking action and moving forward.

1. What is the worst that could happen?

I like this very practical exercise as step number one.

So ask yourself this question. Really think about. Don’t just think about it for a few seconds. Sit down with a pen and piece of paper, your laptop or cellphone. Write it all out and think about what the realistic worst-case scenario would be.

Then write down a plan for how you can come back from such a scenario.
This step brings clarity, defuses fuzzy fears and helps you realize that you can most often bounce back pretty quickly even if the worst-case scenario somehow becomes reality.

If that only works to a degree move on to the next step…

2. Share your fear with someone.

By sharing your fear you can relieve inner pressure. By just keeping it on the inside it’s easy to build it up into this massive nightmare and extremely dangerous thing.

By sharing and by getting some input from a levelheaded friend or family member he or she can help you to alleviate the fear and inner pressure. And you can gain a much healthier perspective on things again.

If you don’t have someone to share it with or if that only works partly too then move on to…

3. Accept the fear.

It is a natural impulse to try to deny the fear when shows up in your life. Perhaps you try to not think about, you try to push it away. Or you tell yourself that you need to focus like a laser beam on the positive.

I have found that in many cases it is actually better to just accept that fear – or whatever is left of it after having worked through step #1 and #2 – is here right now (although it can be hard to sometimes convince your brain that this is a good option as it wants to deny or reject what is).

By accepting that you feel this way you stop feeding more energy into the fear and you stop making it strong. After a few minutes of fully taking in this uncomfortable feeling and accepting it then it starts to lose steam. It just seems to float away and you feel more open and relieved feelings bubbling up within.

4. Tap into curiosity and focus on the upsides.

By now, most of those fearful feelings are often pretty small and they tend come and go. You have processed much of that inner tension and resistance.

So you are now at a good point to start focusing on why you want to move towards what you have feared and to open your mind to what you can find out there.

Take out the pen and paper and ask yourself:

  • What is the opportunity in this situation?
  • What are the potential upsides I want and can have by taking these actions?
  • What are the potential upsides in one year if I start moving on this path? And in five years?
  • And how will life be in five years if I continue on the path I am now?

The answer when it comes to what you eat for lunch or if you want to have a new hobby may simply be that life becomes more fun, healthy, fulfilling and filled with newness and more surprises.

The answer when it comes to taking action to make a date happen, to get a new job or to take another direction in college could be that your life changes completely.

5. Take a small step forward. Take it slowly if you like.

You don’t have to go all in at once in many cases. Think about how you can move in small steps and slowly towards what you want. Just dip your toes in at first if that feels more comfortable. The most important thing is that you start moving and that you take action, not how fast or how much action you take at first.

If you for example want to start your own business work on that in the evening while still working at your day job or staying in school. Don’t let thinking like “I have to go all in and take huge risks” hold you back.

Or if you want to try something new today just tell yourself that:

Just for today I will try [insert something you want to try]!

You just have to do it today. Not ever again after today. You are not signing up for some huge commitment.

Tomorrow you may continue on that new path. Or you may not.

By not making this into a huge thing you have do but instead just a small step, that you can take and get done as slowly as you like, it becomes so much easier to do what is most important at first: to put yourself in motion.

Then, along the way, you can take bigger leaps if you like and speed things up. You will learn through successes and failures (and realize that you won’t die if things don’t go your way all the time). You will quit some things and continue doing other things.

But first, make it easy on yourself to take the first step.

If you thought this article was useful, please share it with someone on Stumbleupon, Facebook and Twitter. Thank you very much! =)

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About the Author

Henrik Edberg is the creator of the Positivity Blog and has written weekly articles here since 2006. He has a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Gothenburg and has been featured on Lifehacker, HuffPost and Paulo Coelho’s blog. Click here to learn more…

Comments on this entry are closed.

  • Thank you, glad that you found the post useful.

  • Like always your posts rocks!

  • Its good.. Thanks for this.

  • Very nice…
    I like it

  • Hello Henrik, new reader here.

    I can relate to number 2. It does make me feel better to share my fears.

  • Hi Henrick,
    I liked the article especially point number 1.” What is the worst that could happen”.
    We should think of worst but give our best.
    This reminded me of my article called “How to Liberate from Fear” which I wrote on my blog sometime ago.
    http://www.planetnaveen.com/2010/12/liberate-yourself-from-fear/

    Thanks so much for these practical tips

  • I think the most critical step is the third one listed — and I think accepting fear is what so many struggle with, as if it’s almost wrong to be fearful.

    I still struggle with this, but I am getting better! Anyway, great post.

  • I used to be very afraid of public speaking. Number 1 on your list above was very helpful for me to overcome this fear. The list of potential outcomes really made the level of fear I felt seem unfounded.

    It is key to put your fears in perspective, and take small steps to move beyond them.

    Now speaking to groups is a large part of my job, and I enjoy it.

  • This reminds me of a quote: “Fear is often greater than the danger itself.”

    Most of the time, there’s no danger. It’s the fear that creates the danger. We think so much of fear. Fearing this and fearing that. But in actuality there’s really nothing to fear about. It’s just our doubts and insecurities. We should learn to be more confident and brave.

  • Share your fear with someone -It doesn’t feel right though for me. I was taught to keep emotions to myself. Going outside the shell would be difficult but I know it’s worth the try.

    • TheHappyOne

      I agree with you that we have been conditioned to keep our emotions to ourself, but recently when my husband was away and I had to tackle a precarious situation faced by my teenage son, I opened up with my husband (though reluctantly as he was half a globe away) and Lo Behold! it helped me a lot. I faced the fear (of my son breaking down), shared it and started taking concrete steps to overcome and here I am a regular visitor of this Positivity blog.
      Thanks Henrik

  • Nicely written. I believe once we accept the fear and continue to push forward with it, a lot of growth can occur. Def seen that in my own life.
    Excellent post!

  • Thank you so much for this post. I am currently blogging about my journey toward inner peace, at worldpeaceisinevitable, and fear is something that certainly stops me from getting there!

    Namaste

  • Geraldine

    Oh, this is such good advice, I needed to read this. I have a long held dream that I’ve wanted to pursue for years but fear (among some other obstacles) has held me back far too long. I’m going to go through this list and use it. I want to do this and I know I can. Overcoming fear is a big part of making that happen. Thank you!

    http://www.takeahappybreak.com

  • Once again…another great post Erik! Thanks.