How to deal with FEAR in 4 Steps

They say courage is doing things afraid.

We are scared AND we can do things regardless. Here is how.

The job of our limbic brain is to keep us safe. Anything that goes beyond the currently known in our life will be perceived as real danger and gets rejected - as we had a 100% survival rate so far. Hence the status quo is more certain than uncertainty which is why most people deal very badly with changes and the unknown.

Reality is rarely what our mind makes it out to be.

All that fear really does is saying: 'Stop, Pay attention, and Take appropriate action!' -

very much like the red signal at a traffic light. Most slow down and stop, some rush ahead regardless. But we all do have to pay attention to it.

If we manage to work through this natural fear signal response to real or perceived danger, we can literally do anything we set our mind to.

How to deal with fear in four steps:

1. Fear ignites an immediate flight, freeze, numb, or attack response in our body.

First we need to calm down our nervous system and body response in order to be able to think clearly.

Take 3 minutes and do below breathing exercise (link). It is very effective and helpful.

It is recommended to train this small exercise in calmer times so our body remembers it in the challenging ones. The body response becomes faster if it is ingrained in our habits.

How to do the breathing exercise: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/simple-priceless-tool-st-wilkinson?trk=mp-reader-card

2. Fear is a life saviour and a signal that things are off and need our full attention right now. That's it.

Consciously remind yourself:

It is extremely rare for most of us to be in a potentially lethal situation.

We can sort things out step by step.

3. Fear is an important signal that things need to be taken care of asap.

Take massive action - we learn and grow as we face and tackle our situation STEP BY STEP - remember that we only have to make it through the next five minutes, one decision at a time, and then the next,.... and so on until completion of the situation.

We might not always be able to change the triggering external situations in that very moment, but we can change how we react to them and plan our further actions, changing our thinking from victim to victor.

No one wants to be at the whim of emotions when stakes are high - especially not in a life or death situation should it ever occur.