I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not the one who does not feel afraid, but the one who overcomes it

- Nelson Mandela

 

Fear is an idea crippling, experience crushing, success stalling inhibitor inflicted only by your self.

- Stephanie Melish  

 

Everyone has two choices, we are either full of love or full of fear -

Albert Einstein

 

Fear and worry can cripple your present and future life. Moments and possibilities are stolen by dwelling on the worst that can happen instead of amazing outcomes. A fear of the past repeating, failure, what people will think or a terrible outcome can become so real that they seem like the only possible outcome, but there are things that you can do to start seeing a succesful alternative:

 

Not viewing failure as negative. I love the saying ‘there are wins and lessons’ if you read any successful person’s autobiography, the road to success was full of failure. Failure represents trying and learning.

 

Educating yourself towards a great result. There is someone who has been through what you have been through and has written down their lessons. Read books that can help you with what you are grappling with and find ways to get wins in these areas. If I am fearful of a maths test, I can study the concepts of how the maths works and this increase in knowledge will diminish my fear. If you are worried about confrontation, read a book and educate yourself on how to handle confrontation. Arming yourself with knowledge opens up more confidence and the knowledge of how to succeed.

 

Create a place to park your worries. The future is full of eventualities and possibilities that may take place but may not. When you think of an appointment coming up that you are worried about, stop and write it down. This lets your mind know that you won’t forget about it but also that you don’t need to dwell on it continually. Next to this, you could write down all the good things that could happen.

 

Recall past wins. Think of all the times when you have had wins in your past. Recall past moments when you were worried and bad things happened but you got through it. This is you remembering that you survived and even thrived in your past and you will continue to do this in your Future.

 

Be inspired by the stories of others. Its great to read a biography like Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand where people have had terrible experiences and survived. These people made it, you can too. 

 

Try scary things. Try and activity which is hard and terrifying that you might possibly fail at. What?! You say, why would I ever do that? This gives you the test platform for dealing with fear and failure. And you might surprise yourself at how well you do. The All Blacks train harder and put more pressure on in practice than a game day so that when the game day does come, they will be more than prepared.