Strategies for overcoming life’s most difficult fears

I felt mortified.

I sat there, failing at my attempts to hide my fear. Spending the day at an amusement park on a family vacation, my (now ex) wife somehow convinced me to ride a roller coaster. I’m not even sure I understood how fearful of them I was until we climbed aboard.

Here I was, the gearhead, the speed addict, terrified of a tiny train car. As silly as it sounds, the fear was all too real. I white-knuckled through the whole ride, swearing I would never do that again.

That’s life. Sometimes you know your fears. Sometimes they spring up on you.

Either way, your fears can limit your ability to accomplish your dreams and live a satisfying life.

Let’s take a look at some proven strategies to kick fear out of the driver’s seat:

Accept Your Fear as Natural

We all experience fear. Its primary design is to protect us, keeping us safe from external harm.

Fear is a biological response to threats, discomfort, and unknown situations.

Fears can be rational – “I worry that bear over there may attack me.” or irrational – “I’m never going to get into college if I don’t get straight A’s in high school.”

We all experience both types of fears, so there is no reason to feel bad for any fear you may have. The key is whether – and how – you deal with it.

Decide if You Should Face Your Fear

If your fear is not hindering your progress in some area of life, you may decide it isn’t worth overcoming.

For example, I will never get on another roller coaster. I’m OK with that. I won’t lose a second’s sleep over it.

But, if I was a roller coaster technician, it could be a problem for my career. In this case, I may need to face my fear or find another career path.

Similarly, a fear of public speaking will not hinder the career of a monk taking a vow of silence, but it may stop a political career in its tracks.

If the fear affects your ability to accomplish a life goal or live in peace, you should face it. If not, you can choose to let it go.

Face Your Fear

So, you’ve assessed your fear and decided you want to face it. Good.

Here are some steps to help:

Get specific

What exactly are you afraid of? Let’s say you have a fear of public speaking. The very idea of it causes your palms to sweat and your pulse to race.

Is it actually public speaking you’re afraid of? I’ll bet it’s not.

It’s more likely you’re afraid of the audience responding negatively to you. Of making a fool of yourself in front of a crowd. Or you struggle with imposter syndrome.

Only you can figure this out, but you need to dig deep here and get very specific. One great tool from my day job is the use of “5 whys.” The concept is to ask yourself why until you get to the root issue – which may take more or less than 5 times.

It looks something like this:

“I’m afraid of public speaking.” Why am I afraid of public speaking?

“Because I”m not good at it.” Why don’t I feel like I’m good at it?

“Because I tend to stutter.” Why?

“Because I get nervous.”

OK. Nervousness could be a root cause. Or, you may still need to dig deeper. For the sake of the example, let’s assume nervousness is the reason.

Now you know what to work on.

How do you get over being nervous and conquer your fear? There are a few things that could help:

Visualization

This works on several different levels. If you want to succeed at something, visualize yourself succeeding at it.

Frequently.

Get specific with your visualization. What do you see? What do you hear?

Are there any smells or feelings you notice in your imagination? Visualize it all. Breathe it in. Relish it.

Repetitive visualization tricks your brain into thinking you’ve already been there, and now you only need to act like it.

The more often you see yourself conquering your fears, the more likely you will be to do so.

Start small and build from there

Perhaps you’ve already had some small wins you can build upon. If so, those are great building blocks. Remind yourself of any success, however tiny it is, as often as you can.

Whether you have some level of success to build on or not, you’ll want to start small when you face your fear.

If you have a fear of public speaking, you aren’t going to give speeches to stadium-sized crowds without building up to big audiences.

But, what if you could do a quick presentation to a small team at work or at your church? You can. You just need to step out of your comfort zone and start laying a foundation you can build upon.

Celebrate your progress

When you take a step – however small – toward confronting your fears, celebrate it. Tell yourself how proud you are of yourself. You should be proud. You showed up and gave it a shot!

Those little dopamine hits will keep you fueled up and moving forward.

Even if you tried to take a step and fell on your face, you should still celebrate your efforts. Failure is a necessary part of the process, and it moves us closer to our goals.

Wrapping it up

Whatever fear you may be trying to conquer, remember fear is a natural part of the human experience. These steps – getting specific about your fears, visualization, starting small, and celebrating your progress – will have you mastering your fears in no time.