Simple Takeaway:
The way to overcome irrational fear is to give your brain accurate information and experiences to make better judgment calls. Experiences and memories with positive outcomes serve as fuel for faith – faith that things will work out. Work on giving your brain micro-memories – little moments of courage with positive outcomes – to lean on so it doesn’t have to resort to fear.
The reason you don’t have the life, character, memories, job, or friends you want is fear.
Fear tells you to hold back, play it safe, don’t let people get too close, don’t be too vulnerable, don’t dream, don’t believe in anything bigger than yourself, and don’t have hope for a better tomorrow.
Fear tells you to compare yourself to others and criticize them where necessary.
Fear says you must be accepted by as many people as possible, so build yourself up so that you look good even if it means tearing others down.
Fear is subtle. It’s deep-seeded from years past and experiences compounded over time.
When we experience fear, our minds are weighing probabilities.
The main question the mind is interested in answering is:
Is this situation dangerous?
It doesn’t actually matter if a situation is dangerous, only whether or not our minds perceive the possibility of danger.
Our brains consider previously known information and apply that to our current circumstance to determine if a situation is normal or not.
Since fear is largely an unconscious process that is progressively built in our minds over time, we can’t ignore or overpower fear with sheer willpower.
No matter how hard you try or how intensely you focus, the fear you avoid will ultimately find it’s way back in if the right circumstances are present.
Most fear isn’t something you have to “overcome.” Instead, it’s something you have to re-train your brain to think differently about.
How to Overcome Irrational Fear
Fear is ultimately rooted in a lack of information or experience.
Experience in the form of memories has a way of setting the brain’s fear meter.
The way to overcome irrational fear is to give your brain accurate information and experiences to make better judgment calls.
Experiences and memories with positive outcomes serve as fuel for faith – faith that things will work out.
Work on giving your brain micro-memories – little moments of courage with positive outcomes – to lean on so it doesn’t have to resort to fear.
You have to input the right information and the right micro-experiences in your brain to make a decision with sound judgment.
But information without experiences can be a double-sided sword:
- Not enough information, and you’re operating in fear.
- Too much information and you’re again operating in fear, this time it’s just the fear of making a wrong choice.
But right there in the middle, there is faith – the place where you let go of being certain and walk forward despite fear.
As you do that one baby step at a time, you create experiences that forge a wall between your brain and fear.
That’s how faith is built.
If you drive on a two-lane road, then you’re putting your faith in the person in the opposite lane who is speeding past you only feet away.
If you had a bad experience driving on a two-lane road, and that was one of the only memories you had of driving, then two-lane roads would probably cause you to feel a certain amount of fear.
That’s because that’s all you know, and your brain is simply acting on the knowledge you have.
Memories are very strong sources of information for our brains.
We all have things that have happened to us throughout our lives that shape the way we see the present and the future. Our brains are very good at processing information, but sometimes we make false connections between a memory and a fact.
In America, many of us face the same probability of danger, yet some live in fear and others don’t. The difference is found in the way we interpret the information and experiences we have.
Here’s the bottom line:
To combat the fear that lies just beneath the surface that drives us to make irrational and unproductive decisions, we have to offset fear with faith by giving our brain as many experiences as possible in any given area so we have facts to pull from in the face of fear. Then we have to trust that we don’t have to control everything in order for us to move forward.
Embracing fear as a necessary obstacle to doing anything worthwhile is one of the best things you can do. And your life and legacy as a spouse, parent, and leader will be marked by courage – not because you overcame fear but because you let go of being in control and walked past fear to do what mattered most.