Look Fear In the Eye – Then Poke It!
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“The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid,
but he who conquers that fear”
- Nelson Mandella
Have you ever found yourself ‘forced’ into doing something you were fearful of doing or ‘having’ to do something you really thought you’d never do because of fear? It might be that you were ‘forced’ into giving a presentation at work because the person who was meant to be giving it fell ill at the last moment and your boss put you forward as a replacement or it might be that you ’had’ to go on a really scary fairground ride because your friend didn’t want to go on it alone. Whatever your fear and whatever the reason for having to face it, how did you feel afterwards?
I think it’s fair to say that in many cases, doing the thing you thought you were too afraid to do leaves you questioning, “why didn’t I do that ages ago?” For example, let’s say you’ve been wanting to learn to swim for years but you’ve been too afraid to join a class at your local swimming pool because you felt too old or you were afraid of being ’forced’ to jump in at the deep end – literally! – or you feared having a panic attack and embarrassing yourself…and so the list of things you feared goes on!
Then, one day, you face that fear and you do it; you go to your local pool and you join a swimming class. You didn’t feel too old, it was an adult learners class. You didn’t have to go anywhere near the deep end, let alone jump in, and you didn’t have a panic attack or embarrass yourself in any way. In fact, you didn’t want to get out of the pool, you had such a great time. It’s not that you didn’t feel afraid, getting into that pool was scary, but you faced that fear and you kept going, you didn’t let fear continue to prevent you from doing something you wanted to do.
When you actually do something you thought you’d never do, you not only experience a massive sense of achievement at having physically done it, you also experience a powerfully motivating confidence boost: you realise that you not only looked your fear in the face, you poked it in the eye on your way past!
This doesn’t mean that you won’t ever experience fear again or that you won’t feel any fear when facing the same challenge again, but it does mean that you’ll feel less fearful because you’re armed with the knowledge that you can do it, therefore you can do it again and you can face other, new challenges as they come along. Each time you poke fear in the eye, its power over you is weakened – you become the master of your own destiny; you become unstoppable!
“Try a thing you haven’t done three times. Once, to get over the fear of doing it. Twice, to learn how to do it. And a third time to figure out whether you like it or not”
-Virgil Thomson
Related articles
- Barbra Streisand, Confidence Lost and Found! (donmacnaughton.org)
- Fear of the Unknown? Try Checking Under Your Bed! (donmacnaughton.org)
