A man living in fear isn’t a rare sight to be seen a lot of people’s lives have been ruined by the constant presence of fear. It’s a big problem that troubles people from all walks of life, and even though conquering fear is much harder than just going along with it, that’s no reason to lose hope. Learning how to overcome fear is a huge step on the path to being a high-quality man, and since that’s why we’re here, we’re going to jump right into it.
Why do we even feel fear?
Fear is a completely natural emotion experienced by everyone.
It’s triggered by the threat of harm, and it’s nothing more than our body’s way to protect us from it. An important evolutionary and biological purpose fear has makes it an unavoidable part of human experience.
Whether we like it or not, It’s there to protect us when we’re in danger. It’s our primal urge.
But not every fear is unnecessary and has to be conquered. Only a fool would try to overcome the fear of a hungry lion.
When the threat is real, fear is necessary.
But what about when there’s no real threat?
What happens then?
Nothing. The physical presence of a threat is irrelevant, if it triggers fear our body’s reaction is the same.
Unlike fearing the hungry lion, fearing when there’s nothing to fear isn’t only unnecessary, but also highly destructive.
How does not conquering fear ruin a man’s life? (h3)
‘What are you afraid of, are you a little girl?’
Now that’s something almost every man can relate to. Young boys around the world have been bred to believe that being afraid is wrong, that it makes them lesser men. We’ve been poisoned, gentlemen, and we need to invest a lot of time into conquering fear based beliefs.
Fear isn’t something that only women and children should feel, nor does it make you less of a man.
The reality is, fear is gender-neutral.
It’s also species neutral.
Humans aren’t the only ones who’re afraid.
NEWSFLASH. Even though there aren’t any conquering fear guides for chickens, they too can experience fear.
However, humans are the only ones who experience fear due to internal dilemmas. We’re able to feel it so intensely that it can paralyze us.
Even though learning how to overcome fear isn’t simple, it has to become a priority.
Especially when an enormous life-ruining potential it has is taken into account. Some of these effects include:
Procrastination
Let me venture a wild guess. You’ve been trying to deal with procrastination for some time now. Am I wrong?
Chances are I’m not.
See, procrastination is a pattern people tend to fall into when their subconscious is stopping them from taking action. A lot of times, it’s triggered by fear.
Even though a lot of people would say that it’s just laziness, I don’t believe that for a second.
I don’t think that people are lazy, they just have some unresolved issues that are preventing them from being who they want to be. More often than not it has something to do with an underlying fear that needs to be addressed.
Perfectionism
People who struggle with perfectionism set standards that are either too high to be reached or can be achieved only with superhuman effort.
Investing so much time into trying to be perfect is a silly thing to do. But some people are so afraid of making mistakes that they’d rather put themselves through the hell of perfectionism than learn how to overcome fear.
If you’re one of the people who’ve been struggling with perfectionism, try to understand why do you feel like you aren’t allowed to make mistakes.
What’s the big deal? You make a mistake and move on. Nobody cares that much except you.
Distracting yourself
When we’re afraid to tackle a task, distracting ourselves is the easiest trap to fall into. Even though we want to take action and make it happen, unresolved issues scare the cr@p out of us, and we just find it easier to watch YouTube for 5 hours.
Not to mention how the dopamine hit we get when we pick up our phones makes it harder to observe and tackle our fears objectively.
Don’t distract and numb yourself anymore, you can only avoid your fears for so long until they come back more vicious and persistent.
Stop ignoring them and tackle them head-on.
Settling
Being too afraid to go after what we want makes us demotivated, and we end up settling for way less than what we deserve.
It’s such a shame that we choose to settle for something we don’t even want rather than learn how to overcome fear and go after what we desire.
The more I think about it the scarier it seems.
How to overcome fear? – Practical steps
Given that irrational fear has enormous life-ruining potential, the importance of learning how to overcome it, and do it productively is paramount.
The last thing I want is to come across as a douchebag who acts as if he doesn’t feel any irrational fears. That couldn’t be further from the truth. I’ve been trying to beat my fears for years now, and I’ve managed to put some of them to rest. There still are fears left to be overcome of course, but the fact that there’s progress is what’s important.
So what are the steps that have helped me?
When it comes to conquering fear, an actionable course of action isn’t all you need. It’s only one half. The other half is understanding why you feel the way you feel. That’s exactly the combination of approaches I’m hoping to help you achieve.
Fear is completely natural
Understanding that fear is a completely normal and natural feeling is one of the first steps to take. Even though not every fear is rooted in rationality, if it’s there, there’s a reason for it.
Any resistance or negative self-talk involving your fears is the first thing to eliminate. Not only will it make you feel awful about yourself, but it will also circle you back into the negative behavior loop we’ve discussed previously.
Fear is a natural feeling, you’re not a failure or an odd one out for feeling the way you feel. We all feel it, and the very first step towards feeling better is making peace with it.
Try to understand your fears
Once the war hatchet has finally been buried, some sniffing around is in place. Brace yourself, because it can be a tiresome process.
Spending some time looking into how and why are these fears affecting your behavior will go a long way. We rarely investigate our negative feelings, and, unfortunately, that’s exactly what a lot of us need the most. Being objective when it comes to other people’s issues is rather simple, but being objective when trying to figure out your issues is quite a task.
Even though it’s hard, it’s not impossible. It’s going to be challenging, but with some persistence and discernment, it can be done.
Meditate, meditate, meditate
If there’s one thing, one tool that could help you with gaining a more objective view of your issues it’s got to be meditation.
There’s something magical about the way the meditation practice aids with getting a clear mind.
If you aren’t an avid meditator or you’ve tried numerous guided meditations and they just don’t work for you, I’ll give you some quick meditation tips.
- Sit, or lay down, whichever is the most comfortable
- Put on some soothing meditation frequency, there are plenty of videos on YouTube
- Just concentrate on your breathing. Take slow, deep breaths – 4 seconds in, 4 seconds hold, 4 seconds out
- When a thought appears, and it will, no matter your meditation experience, just imagine that thought being a balloon someone threw at you. Calmly move out of its and let it go.
- Be consistent.
You don’t need to meditate an hour a day. Start by concentrating on your breath for 15 minutes, and take it easy. In the beginning, it might be a bit hard, but within a few weeks, you’ll see immense results.
Take action
Of course, ‘take action’ is always the most helpful tip for people who’ve been struggling with not being able to take action due to fear.
I’m not talking about action towards your ‘dream life’, or action towards ‘building your empire’, not at all.
I’m advising you to just take action. Any action. Just move your a$s off the couch and go do something.
Of course, that doesn’t mean go do stupid and crazy stuff and get yourself in trouble.
Develop clear goals but know that it’s ok to make adjustments as you go
Having a clear image of what you want to do is always the best practice. To develop a clear image you’ll need to develop some clear goals.
How good are you at goal setting?
Did you know that the way you set your goals greatly determines how successful you’re going to be in achieving them?
Do you know that overcoming fear-based procrastination is much easier if you make an actionable course of action and a clear and concise goal list?
A lot of people live in fear and avoid taking action because they feel overwhelmed. There’s so much stuff to do, that they don’t even know where to start. When there isn’t a clear picture of how to achieve a goal, taking any action can be scary. Hence the need to set clear goals.
If you want to learn how to overcome fear by mastering goal setting, first you have to know a little bit about the S.M.A.R.T. goals. It is simple, S.M.A.R.T. goals are goals that are Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-based.
Once you optimize your goals and develop a clear image of the path ahead, many fears will disappear.
Plan your time and add structure to your life
One huge reason many people feel fear, and a general gut-wrenching feeling towards life is because they lack routine and structure. Again, it isn’t easy to wing it day after day and wander around without any sense of direction whatsoever.
Now, I’m not saying this is you, but let’s be honest for a second.
We all have at least one area of our lives that’s a complete mess. It’s probably been a mess for years, and whenever you think about bringing some order into it, you feel like vomiting.
That’s a lack of structure. If it’s only a messy garage it’s not a serious problem. But if you’ve allowed the dysfunction to plague a more important area of your life, then it can be a problem.
If you want to get your degree, but you feel sick whenever you think about how much studying you have to do, that’s because you know you’re behind schedule. Now you feel anxious whenever you see the notes on the desk. The easiest thing is to just shove them in a drawer and forget about the whole thing. But it always comes back up.
That’s exactly how poor time management brings up fear. It’s may not be paralyzing, but it’s fear nonetheless.
Conclusion
Fear-based beliefs can be such a nuisance, but the damage they do is real. From just avoiding confrontation to settling for things you don’t even like, fear can be a detrimental part of your life.
Conquering fear is, of course, a much more complex issue, which requires both time and effort, in some cases even the help from an expert. Nevertheless, learning how to overcome fear is an important task to tackle, and I truly hope my advice was able to provide at least a bit of help.
