The Blog For Entrepreneurs

1. Realise that fear is your friend

Fear is your mind’s way of taking care of you, at its basic level, and fear is logical.It protects you from what it sees as harm. When fear begins to interfere with your life you just have to look at it like an overprotective parent. My mum hated watching me doing stunts on my BMX at shows… until she had been a few times and saw that I knew what I was doing. She panicked when I went off to the RAF, until I had been there a while and she still worries about me, but that is what mum’s do. Think of your mind as your mum looking out for you instead of some monster to be battled.

2. Face your fear

Ralph Waldo Emerson said “Do the thing you fear most and the death of fear is certain”. This is a powerful and truthful statement. I was in the Royal Air Force and I had a fear of heights which, when sometimes I was required to work hanging off hundred foot aluminium, swaying scaffolding, was not a great thing to have. I faced the fear by taking up microlighting, hangliding and parachuting. I still don’t like heights, but I do not have an irrational fear of them anymore.

Like I said above, treat your mind like an overprotective mum, show it over and over again that you can actually do the thing you fear and not get hurt and your mind will start to forget that it was ever worried about that fear.

3. Educate Yourself

In your quest to overcome fear educate yourself in the thing that you fear. What are the odds of dying in a plane crash? Flying a round-trip every work-day for 30 years, has a lifetime risk under 1 in 787. That is a 1 in 787 chance if you fly EVERY DAY for all your working life, the chances of dying in a car crash if you drive everyday are 1 in 158. In a one off flight the odds of dying in a plane crash when travelling on the 25 airlines with the worst safety records is 1 in 724,000, fly with the one of the 25 safest airlines and your odds are 1 in 10,000,000.

You could educate yourself as to how a plane is built to resist turbulence, lighting strikes, bird strikes (a bird in the engine). How many safety features are built in etc.

If is not flying, but public speaking, read about those who do it and how they approach public speaking. What about the fear of failure? Educate yourself on how you can change your beliefs to aid with this. Fear of snakes, going outdoors anything! Educate yourself about your fears and you will be giving food to your subconscious to calm down and not be so protective of you when it comes to that fear.

4.Ask For Help

Some people don’t like the idea of therapy, but there is something to be said for a professional helping you out. If that is just not you, then ask somebody to help. You will be amazed at how people are willing to help you overcome a fear. The general view is that most people are out for themselves, I don’t agree, most people love to help out their friends and would be happy to work with you to overcome a fear.

If you have a fear you are looking to overcome, send me an email and I will do what I can to help by publishing an article or directly, if I am able. We are also in negotiations to team up with a fabulous forum where you can also seek some help.

5. Work on your belief system

You can learn more about this by downloading our free eBook ‘Becoming and Entrepreneur – Boot Camp’. It is about creating the mindset to becoming an entrepreneur by looking at your overt and hidden beliefs. Often a fear is based upon some belief you have been carrying around for a long time, but when you discover it and are able to bombard it with logic and conscious thought, you will find your fear can slip away almost in an instant.

6. Re-assess your language

I don’t mean start speaking Japanese, what I mean is take a look at your everyday phrases when it comes to your fears. For example some people use language like this when describing a fear “I would die if…. I had to talk in public, get on a plane, etc”…. Really? You would just die straight away, keel over as you walked on stage or down the boarding gate? Sounds silly when you put it that way right? Just remember your subconscious has no way of distinguishing what you are being serious about and what you are not. If you say “I would die if I had to get on stage in front of people” your subconscious is saying “OK, I will stop you doing that by making you sweat, shake, vomit… whatever it takes to protect you from dying”.

You are probably thinking ‘what tosh’ but words are powerful things, if your inner dialogue is negative you will have a negative outlook, I guarantee it. I refuse to have negative dialogue about myself, self-analysis yes, negative dialogue.. no.

You will never hear me saying “I can’t do that”. Maybe “at this time I am unable to” or “I haven’t yet learned the skills to do…” You should be very, very careful of how you communicate to yourself, especially when it comes to fears. You run the risk of re-enforcing fear without actually suffering any ill-effects from that fear! Keep telling yourself you have a ‘fear of public speaking’ and it will get worse and worse even if you haven’t spoken in public for ages!

The opposite works too, if you have a positive dialogue with yourself, your fears will diminish.

7. Visualisation

Visualisation is such a positive thing, but when it comes to fear we often use it as a negative. Remember you choose what to think, whatever you are thinking of now you can choose to change it. The same is the case with visualisation. Instead of visualising yourself screwing up a public speech, or dying in a plane crash, or failing at your business, visualise what you would look like if you gave the best speech and your audience were on their feet, the safest most wonderful and adventurous flight with your smiling family at the other end or the rewards, your house, your car, the best for your family when your business succeeds.

The difference between the most successful people I have ever met and those that are stuck in a rut is not talent, intelligence or luck, it is in the way they communicate with themselves and the action they take. Tiger Woods for example… you won’t find him in the top list of the longest drives or most greens in regulation, despite the press, but you will find him at, or near, the top in every list that talks about ‘saves’ that is shots from the bunker, from the rough etc. Why? Because Tiger refuses to communicate these things as a negative to himself. Asked if he was surprised that he won a tournament once he said “Why would I be? I had already won it in my mind”.

These few tips on overcoming fear are not mutually exclusive. Use them together and you will find that your fears have less power over you. You will find that you can make a dent in the fears that you hold. Once you realise that, you will realise that you can manage your fear and that, my friend, is the moment you will start to realise your full potential.

Remember ‘One Life : No Fear’

Regards
David
@OneLifeNoFear