Fear comes in many guises, and affects many parts of our lives. A few common fears are the fear of public speaking, the fear of rejection, the fear of doing something wrong, the fear of looking foolish, etc.
We all have fears; from the company director to the cleaner, from the president to the housewife, we all fear things, and many of those fears are the same, though they often appear to be different.
Everyone fears what other people think of them. If you are afraid of speaking in public, the chances are the biggest most acute part of that fear is not that you get your lines wrong, but worrying what the audience will think of you. Thoughts will run through your head that each person in the audience will be assessing what you are saying, and will be negative about you to the people around them. Of course that is not the case, because most if not all people are not too bothered about you, and are only interested in themselves. When you have finished your speech, the audience will not be concentrating on how badly or well you did, but thinking more about how what you have said will affect them, or even what they will do when you have finished.
All fear is overcome in two ways. No matter how acute your fear is, you overcome it by confronting the fear. If you do the fear you are worrying about you will overcome it. If you are afraid of public speaking, then the best way to overcome it, is to just do it.
Imagine all the people who you see speaking in public; everyday you come across these people, at work, on television or in your social circle, these people appear to be able to speak to anyone, in front of everyone. You may imagine them to be so brave to stand up in from over everyone and start speaking, but the truth is all these people at one time or another have a fear of speaking in public, but on the whole they have confronted that fear which enables them to be confident in a crowd. Of course they sometimes worry about making a mistake, but they know anything they get wrong will not make much difference to their overall presentation, because they have done it before, they have made mistakes and got things wrong before, but they know it will be ok, because it always is. They have all overcome their fear at one time.
The other way to overcome fear is the believe that you can deal with any situation that comes your way, no matter what happens, you can deal with it. If you lose your job - you can deal with it, if you find yourself alone - you can deal with it, if you have to speak in public – you can deal with it.
Overcome fear by confronting the fear itself, and reminding yourself you can deal with the situation.
It’s important to remember that no matter what you do, if you are to move forward in your life you will experience fears. You must make changes in your life or you will be standing still or even going backwards, and to overcome this you will be faced with fears. You will always feel fear. You will always experience the sense of fear and have to deal with some fear or another throughout your life, you need to accept that as a fact.
The consequences of not dealing with the fear, or not confronting it head-on could be very serious, and may cause stress related illnesses. As soon as you feel fearful, it is important to face it straight away. The best way to confront it is to do it immediately, don’t delay. The longer you leave it the worse it gets and the harder it is to overcome.
Everyone one of us is confronted with fear on a regular basis, we all have fears, and we all get over those fears by confronting them or by believing we can deal with the fear. There are no exceptions.