How To Overcome Your Fears — And Reach your Full Potential

We are all afraid. Afraid of failing. Afraid of being judged by others. Afraid of not being good enough. We compare ourselves to those who are more successful than we are and imagine that we don’t have the creative, intellectual or monetary capacity to do the same. Sometimes we may even go so far as to think that we have fooled those around us into thinking that we are better than we are. Welcome to the impostor syndrome club, aka the invasion of fears and false beliefs that blocks us from developing our full potential.

However, there are several ways to approach fear: stay invaded by it, therefore blocking the creation of our ideal reality; or experience and overcome it, using it as a driving force. What this means is that we all have fears and false beliefs, what is different is how we react to them.

If you are one of those people who let your fears get in the way of your fulfillment, welcome to the club! And yes, this is the first article I’ve written, the first time I dared to overcome my fear of not being good enough to publish. How did I do it? How can you do it too? I’m going to share this with you immediately.

First, I became aware of my fear. I suggest the following exercise: sit down comfortably, and write down your thoughts to the following questions:

What are you afraid of?
Hints: fear of rejection? fear of judgment from others? fear of failure if you try?

What are the judgments and false beliefs that coexist with these fears? Hints: “I don’t have enough knowledge/experience to do x project” — “There are so many people already publishing on this, I won’t be able to stand out”.

Once you have brought more awareness to the fears and beliefs that are blocking you from self-actualization, ask yourself: is this true? (The Work, Katie Byron)

To support the idea that these beliefs are indeed false; write down all your past accomplishments for which you may not have offered yourself recognition. What have you achieved? Take time to feel the recognition. I invite you to close your eyes, mentally say to yourself “I have achieved x” — and feel in your heart and body the credit you have in this achievement.

This step is particularly important in the development of self-esteem. Indeed, by constantly comparing ourselves to our ideal, we develop a lack of self-esteem. In his book “The Gap and The Gain” (suggested to me by Benjamin Hardy, PhD in his AMP program), Dan Sullivan develops the idea that by measuring ourselves against our ideal, we find ourselves in “the gap”, that is to say in everything we have not yet achieved and that we want to accomplish. Thus, we do not recognize ourselves for our successes, but rather for what we still have to achieve. However, when we measure backward, or “the gain”, we measure what we have already accomplished, which increases our self-confidence and abilities and deconstructs the false beliefs that prevent us from moving forward.

The importance of interpretation

It is here that the interpretation of our reality is what differentiates people who propel themselves despite their fears, and those who block themselves because of their fears. If I interpret my fear as true, I am feeding the false beliefs associated with it, and this is what I will manifest in my actions. In other words, if I believe that I can’t write this article, that people won’t like it, and that I’m afraid of failing, then chances are I won’t write this article. On the other hand, if I observe the fear, and interpret that it is not true and that it is a source of my imagination (or of past experiences that are no longer true in the present), then I can mentally tell myself that this fear is just a mirage, that it is normal for it to be present since everyone experiences it. So, I choose to interpret the fear as a figment of my imagination, and I settle down to write this article, letting go of the outcome.

What about you, what are you afraid of? What will you do to overcome your fears?

Patience…

Once the fear is overcome and the first article is written, I don’t expect to get success immediately. Patience… Are you familiar with the compound effect? It’s the idea that it’s the performance of habits regularly that gradually leads to results. It’s a bit like playing training at the gym. It’s not after one session that I will develop my muscle mass. However, after a few weeks or months, I will start to see results.

Overcoming your fears is a daily commitment. And don’t get discouraged if you don’t see results right away. By doing the exercise of bringing these fears to our consciousness, and challenging them by dismantling false beliefs, we will be able to develop our potential!

With a bit of luck, I will be an example of this. 1st article written, 1st fear overcame. Now, all I have to do is recognize myself for this overcoming, which will allow me to develop confidence in myself and to continue on this path to success.