You Fear, You Fail

By Gerald S. Sikazwe 

What is fear? Fear is an unpleasant feeling that comes as a result of sensing danger or thinking that you will be harmed if a certain course is pursued. Many authors have also referred to it as being an acronym for False Evidence Appearing Real. The common facts underlying in all definitions of fear are that it is an unpleasant feeling, it comes with thoughts of danger which are just a figment of our minds and that it is a hindrance to success. Many of us are where we are stagnant because we are afraid to change the order of our lives, we cannot dare try out something because we fear it will not work and people will mock us once we fail or that we are just unable to make it happen. Fear has us caged in dark worlds of hopelessness and dire uncertainty, we are basically scared even to think passed what we fear.

The bad thing is that often times people, who have surrendered their lives to fear, do not even realize that they have done so. Fear has been made their master, dictating to them what they are to think and how they are to think about it, determining what they can do, and to what extent they can do it. It basically runs their lives, controlling the affairs of their lives. Fear has drained them of any hope of a better future, to extents where they begin believing that maybe they were just born for that kind of life. It has crippled their minds, they can no longer wish, hope or dream. People who have allowed fear to rule over them, simply exist and instead of living. They gave up on life a long time ago, now they just exist unable to reclaim control of their lives.

Fear has the ability to ruin lives, in fact it has ruined many and many are on the verge of giving up their lives to it. Therefore, it is wise to put guard against it every chance you see it surface in your life. To start with identify what you are scared of, understand what you are afraid of. If you can know for sure what it is that you fear, you can find ways of handling it. Say you have fears pertaining meeting new people, take time identify what really scares you about meeting new people. Mind you, if you know what the problem is then the problem is half solved.

Secondly, find out what the cause for your fears is in order to understand what you are afraid of better. Are you afraid because others say it is difficult or because you failed once to do it or because it is really harmful. After that make sure you understand why people say it is difficult or why you failed in the first place or why it turned out to be harmful when it did. This will enable you to see beyond what fear presents to you. Fear does not present a holistic picture of an activity, it shows the possible negative outcomes only (without showing why those outcomes were attained) leaving out the possible positive outcomes. Therefore, this analysis of what the causes of what you are scared of enables you to see beyond what fear suggests.

After that, determine the worst possible outcome. Imagine the worst thing that can happen if you did what you are scared of and then come to terms with it, accept what would happen. Then confront your fears go ahead and do what you were initially afraid to do. If you do this realistically, you will realize that your fears were overly unfounded.

Fear leads to failure, do not entertain it all!