Fear and fearfulness can be a real disabler, stopping you dead in your tracks and keeping you from pursuing your dreams and goals.
Fear manifests in the form of…
- Procrastination,
- Overwhelm,
- Making up excuses,
- Doubt in own ability,
- Anxiety, where there is an imbalance in perceived ability and requirements,
- Denial,
- Avoidance
These behaviours come from some underlying fear, it could be fear of failure, fear of… coming to harm, even death, embarrassment, vulnerability, loss, poverty, change, uncertainty, discomfort, rejection… the list goes on.
Fear is a mind-construct and comes from working through scenarios of what might happen in the future, but because it’s thought-based it inevitably will be biased towards self-preservation and minimising risk and uncertainty where possible, because that’s what thoughts are conditioned to do.
Doing anything new, moving away from your comfort zone, will cause a fear reaction. It does so for everybody to some degree. The difference between those that act and those that don’t is confidence and risk-tolerance.
Some people naturally believe more in themselves or have been brought up to have confidence in themselves and are prepared to tackle uncertainty and risk, because they feel they will find a way through to a successful conclusion, no matter what.
Others have been conditioned to believe risk is dangerous and to play safe and/or have been brought up in such a way as to have their confidence eroded to the point that they just don’t want to take a chance.
Confidence is often built-up or demolished in childhood years, and the beliefs about ourselves, that are subsequently formed, follow us into adulthood.
We should increase self-awareness and truly challenge any limiting-beliefs, because often they are more likely to be reflection of the self-doubt of the very people who discouraged us from taking risks, dealing with uncertainty and change, rather than of us, as individuals.
Discouragement and warnings of what might go wrong, may have been made with the best intentions of keeping us safe, but result in a self-imposed prison.
Because they may be long-standing beliefs, it may take some time to break out of the groove they have imprinted on our minds and patterns of thinking, but bringing them into AWARENESS and challenging them is often the all important first step.
Repetition of a new empowering belief will form a new neural pathway through the power of habit. Put simply, replace bad habitual thinking patterns with good ones.