Mental Health Drop In Center

Have you ever felt submerged by fear – so much so that it blocked you from doing something you wanted to do? Believe it or not, this is a common problem faced by many people.

Fear has the strength to hold you back from taking risks, following your dreams, or becoming successful at anything you try to do. If you allow it to control you for long enough, it can ultimately deteriorate your quality of life and stop you from doing whatever you desire to accomplish.

Conquer Your Phobia

What many people fail to realize is that fear is nothing more than a conditioned response. It’s a natural reaction to a frightening or unfamiliar situation. While it is usually automatic, there are 3 steps you can do to overcome it.

1) Check your expectations

One major contributor of fear is the prevalence of negative expectations. Do you usually find yourself expecting the worst in every situation? Do you constantly worry about what could go wrong, rather than focusing on your strengths and abilities?

If you make a vigilant effort to expect the best, see the positive side of each situation and keep reminding yourself that you can handle more than you often think, you’ll find yourself with much less fear to deal with. Even if feelings of fear do manage to creep into your consciousness, you’ll still be able to keep them in perspective and balance them against an fundamental sense of confidence.

2) Discredit your fears

Experts will tell you that the majority of things you fear will never come to pass anyway. While this may be true, it sure doesn’t feel that way when fear is stopping you! However, if you look a little more closely at your fears when they occur, you may be able to let go of at least a few.

For example, if you have a fear of public speaking and your boss wants you to give a presentation at work, you might feel like your life (and perhaps your profession) is on the line. You may fear getting fired, or worry that your coworker will lose respect for you if you don’t speak well.

But is any of this likely to happen? In most cases, no. Rather than worrying about what “might” happen if you don’t give a solid presentation, you might think of ways to help improve your performance, such as being well prepared, practicing your speech on friends and family members, writing notes to yourself and so on.

3) Do the very thing you fear

When you remember that fear is simply a feeling, it loses much of its strength. It can’t harm you except in truly threatening situations, which you can choose to ignore it and move forward anyway.

If you weigh the pros and cons in any situation, you may decide that the possibility of negative consequences is minimal so there’s nothing to stop you from ignoring your fear and going for it! This will be determined by you on a case by case basis, of course. The point isn’t to become reckless with your decision-making but rather to motivate yourself to know when a fear is groundless and easily overcome.

Quickly Cure Your Phobia and Fears
Just 10 Minutes A Day at Stop Your Phobia

Scott Barker- EzineArticles- Expert Author

For additional resources on fears and phobias, you can view my
Squidoo Lens at:

Phobias Tools & Treatment

This article may be freely reprinted or
distributed in its entirety in any Ezine,
newsletter, blog, or website. The author’s
name, bio and website links must remain
intact and be included with every reproduction.

Filed under: Phobias