When I was young, I was just too afraid of heights. I was scared of falling down even from the first floor where our classes used to be. I always felt relieved when I placed my feet on ground, thinking that I won’t fall. It took me a while to realize that not facing your fears in one of the worst things that can be done. It only worsens the situation, making you feel you cannot do something as simple as not being afraid of falling down of the 1st floor of a building!
How does one get rid of a fear? Simple. Face it. Once you come into contact with that fear head on, you can be sure you are going to see the height of that fear. I remember my trembling legs trying to see things from such height. However, as soon as I saw it through and noticed nothing wrong happened to me, I was a bit relieved. Over time, I got rid of the fear out of myself.
People are usually afraid of something, the most common fears are: height, darkness, closed spaces, losing your loved ones, losing your reputation, failure and death. I am going to focus on the same philosophy for most of the fears, not all of course (I don’t expect you to lose your loved ones to lose that fear).
The Fear of Failure makes a very compelling case of why you should fail. Once you fail, you learn lot of things if you have a positive frame of mind. As the saying goes “Anything that doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.” You should not plan to fail, but make sure you keep that as a healthy alternative. Most people give up when they are really close to success. Why? Because they inhibit their fear of failure. In no time, they get overwhelmed by the same fears and end up losing hope. If on the other hand, they face the challenge with a positive frame of mind thinking things would turn out to be good either ways and that in the larger scheme of things, one small incident doesn’t really matter too much, they would be far more likely to get successful sooner and be happy too.
Action Exercises:
- Try to identify your fears.
- Put yourself into situations where you have to face those fears, feeling that you will go through it and this is just a state of mind more than anything else.
- Reward yourself when you face your fear – even a small reward such as a cup of coffee would do, but make sure you reward yourself.