A Practical Guide For Overcoming Fear
Fear, and its lesser cousin anxiety, keep us from doing what we know we can do. While I am not the most courageous person ever, I have had to deal with a lot of fear the past few years of my life. Not of things like covid, I never feared that, but fears like paying my bills, ever having a career, and getting my own sweaty startup to work. I also had a recent incident in a lake without a life preserver where I had to fight hard to swim to shore. I’ve had a few all-nighters in the hospital when something was wrong with my child. I’ve gotten the call my wife was in an accident (she turned out okay).
Each of us will be touched by incidents. Many people may have felt sick to their stomach with the recent shocking news of Trump almost being assassinated. We can honestly never know when something is going to happen that will change our lives forever. That is why I pondered how to deal with fear. Not only for extreme situations, but for small anxieties that slowly kill our ability to live. For all our sake, here is a simple listicle to spell out my best thoughts on the subject. There is still room for improvement. Lastly, I should note I do not always see fear as a bad thing. I think there are plenty of situations where fear is telling us something important and we should not ignore it, but still, one has to know how to manage it.
Get tough. I’m talking about being fit and athletic. I learned from my hard swim in the lake that physical fitness is the best life insurance one can have. To eat better, to work out regularly, it’s not for show once you need your body to perform. This is age-old wisdom we all nod our heads at and say, yes yes, I should get in shape, but I look around me every time I’m out of the house and 1 out of 10 people look like they have some level of fitness. Even young people look unhealthy and unfit. Not only are they less capable of helping themselves, but they aren’t going to be able to help you in a jam, either.
Whenever I’ve been around clearly fit people they exude an aura, a sense of fearlessness. Not only are they not ashamed of how they look, but they know they are ready for a lot more physical action than average people and they possess greater command over their bodies. When you demand so much from your body it turns into a hard instrument of power, you develop a strong sense of being capable of pushing yourself outside your comfort zone. Comfort is our enemy, it’s practically a disability. C’mon, you already know this, start challenging your body now before it’s too late.
Be fanatically religious. If there’s anything religious fanatics can teach us it’s this: they are fearless. Most people are religious in some capacity, and if you are not religious, then replace religious fanatic with philosopher. But if you are religious, as I am, it’s time to take it seriously. Successful people do all sorts of kooky things, from their beliefs to their rituals, but they do their weird things with a zealousness. They are not ashamed. Nor should we be ashamed. If you are a Christian, Muslim, Jew, Buddhist, Hindu or other, be a serious version of that unashamedly so. Your acquaintances, your friends, your family, their opinion of you should not fill you with anxiety. Being a more serious version of your religious self will give you practice in being uncomfortable. It’s a harmless way to begin overcoming small doubts and troubling thoughts.
In this way, not only will small anxieties begin to diminish, but you take misfortunes on the chin. You start to grow from your problems, you see them as lessons to instruct you into greater wisdom. I feel grateful now for my lake incident. It taught me a lot of wisdom that I believe will assist me in making each day better, and it functions as a powerful, physical reminder. Whenever I start to feel uncomfortable or anxious about something, I think to myself “this is nothing compared to swimming to shore not knowing if I could make it.”
Actually control what you have control over. I had an irrational fear of looking at my bank account. Then one day, I looked and noticed I had been ripped off hundreds of dollars by Yelp. They were charging me for ridiculous things every day. Their website had no way to disconnect the service and I was forced to come up with a solution or risk financial ruin. All because I didn’t control what I had control over. Not everyone out there is going to have your best interest in mind. Even large companies do their best to get as much money out of you as they can before you notice. Yelp was sneaky and made it difficult for me to do anything about it, but if I had kept track of my “free” advertisement credits then cancelled on time and kept an eye on my bank account to ensure I wasn’t being milked, then I would have saved myself a lot of headache. Instead, I forgot about Yelp and their credits and suffered the consequences.
Nowadays I look at my bank account every day. My irrational fear is slowly subsiding. I am also checking my emails and any other accounts I have on the daily. Better to be redundant and catch things early then pay the price later on for letting your control slide. I couldn’t control how Yelp treats their clients, but I could control what I had access to on my end and track it.
Actually get organized. I used to struggle with organization. Well, I still do, but I am improving. I wouldn’t keep track of bills, I wouldn’t log things, I wouldn’t file mail right away, I’d let things sit, I wouldn’t handle stuff on time. It used to be bad, I’d be delinquent on stuff. Now I take the time to be thorough and file everything, handle paperwork right away, create contacts in my phone, keep a calendar, those sorts of things.
This is all so I am not caught unaware of something. Organization is a great way to deal with potential fear and anxiety. If I know where everything is or where to find anything I need, like an ID, an old document, a tax document, an old email, a child’s health card, whatever it is, I have to know where to find it and I save myself a ton of trouble. My wife used to lose her car keys all the time because she never kept track of where she’d drop them. I installed a key holder on the wall and helped her maintain the practice of hanging up her keys every time. I also keep the phone charger in the same location (she would move it every time she needed to charge her phone and it’d go missing) and never ever ever move it, so I am never without a charged phone. Everyone has things like this and it’s easy to develop an organizational strategy to make your life easier, which will increase your peace of mind on this small stuff.
Be sure to learn your skill effectively. I have a business, and while I may not be a business guru, I know everything about the skills needed to service a client. I am fully confident in my ability to satisfy a client. This was not always so in every area of my life. I had an opportunity to build a website for someone once up on a time. The moment the opportunity came to me my mouth dried up and I was terrified. Suddenly I felt like I knew nothing about building websites. And it was true, I hadn’t practiced enough, I didn’t build any fully functional practice sites, I didn’t know how to solve a lot of coding problems, and so on. I was a mess and anxious every day when I’d have the green light we were starting. Every time I learned things were delayed I’d feel a wave of relief, then I’d grind code for up to 12 hours a day.
Lucky for me I never had to face this fear. The client decided not to pursue the site and I was off the hook. When the rubber met the road I realized I wasn’t ready, because I hadn’t really learned my craft. Sure, I went through The Odin Project and freecodecamp and read books on JavaScript and watched a bunch of tutorial videos, but I didn’t spend the time to learn effectively. I only practiced coding on codewars for a few problems. I never tried to solve leetcode. I didn’t attempt to learn to code using my learning strengths as a visio-spatial person. In the aftermath I have come to realize I never knew how to study for me, for my particular brain strengths. This made me feel incompetent and put a lot of fear in me.
In a different career, I had a lot of fear and anxiety hold me back for similar reasons. This was in sales. I learned a lot and read a lot of sales material, but I didn’t practice enough, and I would forget my scripts and freeze up. Then I wouldn’t ask for the sale. I’d be afraid of the sale because I would forget what I should do or have to explain to the customer. I became reliant on my manager to close deals. Ultimately, I didn’t make it as a salesman. Why? Because I didn’t learn my skill effectively. I didn’t take the time to memorize what needed memorizing, practice what needed practicing, and then address my fears of asking people to do what they may not want to do.
Practice low-stakes things that stress you out a bit. Everyone has stuff they’re a little afraid of. Maybe it’s as simple as writing here on Medium. If you’re afraid to write, then you know you need to write. It’s low-stakes. Hey, I made .06 cents from my writings and I still write. It’s good practice and your writings turn into a reference guide yourself. Someday I will come back to this guide because I will have forgotten some of my own tips.
If people scare you, start low stakes talks, like saying hi to cashiers, or maybe even using human cashiers instead of self-checkout. Call up a friend you haven’t spoken to in a while. Send a direct message to people on the internet you have been following. Self-promote on social media, especially if you feel that’s icky or in bad taste. Disagree with someone in person.
Everyone has different little things they get stressed about but aren’t a big deal. Keep tackling those things until you develop a habit of overcoming small discomforts. If you’re afraid of public speaking, start making Youtube videos with a camera on you and you explaining something you know. Heck, make it political or talk about entertainment or religion, the big topics. Don’t worry, almost no one is going to watch you, but it’s great practice. I felt irrationally afraid the first time I made some Youtube videos, but now I can make them whenever I feel like it because my brain has learned it’s no big deal to have a video with 23 views. The important thing is building the habit. You can always graduate yourself and take on more difficult fears or up the ante.
Conclusion
The reason for this guide is because I haven’t found much material that satisfies me for ways to deal with fear. I believe preparation is a good strategy and that’s what’s reflected in my tips. I would add to my list a bonus thought: make a plan you can carry out if things turn out not like how you expected. A backup plan, so to speak. Maybe one day your spouse never comes home. Maybe the job you are counting on fires you. Maybe you have a life-altering medical emergency. In order to avoid sheer terror, it’s important to have some level of preparedness.
What if the economy or market does, in fact, crash? Or worse, collapse? What if world war III breaks out? What if inflation gets 3x worse? None of these things are pure fantasy, each is possible. Gain greater control over your day to day activities and responsibilities, become physically resilient, develop plans of action, reduce your general anxiety and face your fears. If you want to live you have to deal with fear, because fear will find you.
