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- 8 Ways to Overcome Fear and Build Confidence
Like magic, when you face your fears and do what you say you’re going to do, confidence suddenly appears.
Do you lack confidence in any area of your life? At some point, we all have places within ourselves where we are a work in progress. The crazy part and what most people don’t recognize (because it happens in the moment), is that fear is usually the culprit that is the confidence-blocker. Think back to when you were afraid of something and I can almost bet it was when you also lacked confidence. Now, think back to a time when you felt confidence and its guaranteed that fear was not in control or not present, and if it was, it was in the background holding very little power over you.
I decided that I want to be a part of the solution to helping people overcome fear and build confidence. First I had to figure out why so many suffer with fear that prevents them from taking action. Next I wanted to get to the root of what causes a lack of confidence. Guess what I discovered? It’s fear of judgement.
Fear of judgement is the silent assassin of confidence; however, fear of any kind will create and tell you stories of why you shouldn’t do something, or even worse, why you can’t. Fear chips away at your confidence by slowly building illusions of stories in your mind that falsely validate why you aren’t good enough. This is nonsense. Today you can decide to change the narrative of how you deal with fear. All it takes is the decision to do so.
Not only am I going to list out 8 ways to help you overcome fear and build confidence, but at the end of this article I am going to go one step further and put myself out there and show you how to do both.
Here are 8 ways you can overcome fear and build confidence:
- Do what you are afraid of doing
- When you do this, you’re standing up for yourself and will overcome fear. Try it and feel your sense of confidence rise.
- Stop caring what other people think
- From talking to people, this one seems to be the biggest struggle for so many. If you can overcome this fear, I promise your confidence will soar through the roof.
- Take action towards what seems to be impossible to accomplish
- If you keep in mind that nothing is impossible, you can overcome this fear. “It’s impossible” is a story that you tell yourself. Nothing is impossible. The key to overcoming this fear is to take one step in the direction of what seems to be impossible. Then take another, and so on and so forth. Remember, baby steps…that’s all it takes to build confidence.
- Speak lovingly to yourself. Stop speaking negative talk to yourself
- Most people are not even aware that this is occurring and don’t realize that speaking negatively over your life directly affects your level of self-confidence or lack thereof. It also keeps what you fear at the forefront of your life.
- Uplift and encourage someone else
- When you encourage others, it gives you a sense that you make a difference because you let someone else know that they certainly do. This helps to eliminate the stories we fabricate about other people’s judgement of us. When you have a sense that you make a difference, it builds confidence.
- Show someone else how to do something that you once struggled with
- This is a big one because when you can help other people avoid the same pitfalls in life that you once encountered, it helps to alleviate the fear you once struggled with in that area. Not only will doing this help you feel more confidence, but you will help build up someone else’s confidence in themselves.
- Live outside of your comfort zone. Only go there to relax or unwind
- The reason this works is it’s uncomfortable and sometimes scary to leave your comfort zone, but the rewards of doing so are massive. You overcome the things you fear most and when you do, you will feel more confident and know for certain there isn’t anything you can’t do when you put your mind to it.
- Dream big. Have a vision, write it down, set time aside to visualize the process of how you will accomplish your goals, and then get busy making your dreams a reality
- When you live your life in this manner, you will come face to face with what you fear the most. There will be times when you will get knocked down and lose your confidence, but if you never lose hope and belief in yourself, the process alone will help you overcome your fears and build confidence.
If you struggle in this area of lacking confidence and fearing the unknown, which at some point, all of us do, my suggestion is to start by taking small steps to get better in these two areas. A lot of times, we want the world to see us as perfect, but that’s just not reality. Be okay with not being perfect, and if you fear what other people may think, do it anyway and watch the fear disappear and your confidence grow just a little bit more.
Reality Check: Fear wins every time you care what other people think. You can’t afford to care. Your life depends on you!
I go into more details about why You Can’t Care. Click on the link and find out why!
Now, as promised, I am going to share with you two of the areas that I sometimes struggle in due to fear and if I can be totally honest with you, it stems from caring what other people think. If this is something you struggle with, let today be the last day that you care what other people think.
I can’t insist that you be willing to step outside of your comfort zone if I am not willing to do the same; therefore, I challenged myself to be vulnerable and show you me, with no filter, while I do what most people do before they show the world who they want them to see.
Normally, all of the images of me are not the me you see. My makeup is always on point, my hair is done to perfection (well almost), and I dare not put a picture out there with a body image that’s not appealing. For some, like myself, hair and makeup is a must before presenting myself to the world. For others, it’s to make sure everything they wear has someone else’s name on it, or to drive a car they really can’t afford. Whatever you do, make sure you are doing it for you and not for other people.
I also made a short video encouraging you to do what you fear. Was it scary? Yes it was, but I did it anyway, and just like that, I felt more confident afterwards. It doesn’t matter if its not perfect. What matters is being brave enough to do you.
Take a look and then go boldly face every one of fears and let nothing stop you from doing exactly what you want to do in life:
- Do what you are afraid of doing
