What is stopping you from getting what you want in life?

Your friends?

Your family?

A sense that failure – or success – might change your life and that feeling uncomfortable?

A sense that the people around you might disapprove of you aiming for what you want, of you succeeding or failing.

Essentially it boils down to fear. The big roadblock, sometimes the massive wall in the middle of road that keeps you from getting what you want.

How to overcome it? Here´s some useful ways I have found so far.

1. Taking small steps

This is good for fear that can seem overwhelming at first. For instance the strong feeling – it can almost feel like a flight or fight-response – just before doing public speaking or asking someone out for a date. If you´re for instance nervous socially you might not feel able to ask people out on dates right away. The fear of being rejected and that others might think less of you if you get turned down can make many of us feel unable to ask the question.

A solution is to take small steps instead. Steps like first just saying hi to people. Or starting to talk more to people online via forums and Instant Messaging. And then trying to be more involved in conversations to exercise your conversation-muscles. I guess one could say that you gradually de-sensitize yourself to social situations or whatever you are afraid of. Or, seeing it in a more motivating way, building courage and expanding your comfort zone in this part of your life (which is something that often bleeds over to other areas of life too.)

So, identify your fear. Then make a plan with some smaller steps you can take to gradually lessen your discomfort.

2. Getting some concrete, positive motivation

Getting to the stage where you really feel that you need to stop waiting – or need stop reading one personal development book after another – and take action can take some time. One way to get moving is to replace some of your negative thoughts – that creates negative feelings – with clear, positive reasons to get going.

Take 5 minutes. Take out a pice of paper and a pen. And write down all the wonderful ways you can come up with how making this change will improve your life.

Lack of motivation can get you stuck while contemplating how much your life sucks. If you don´t become clear on you motivation it can become hard to get going and knowing why you are actually need to change.

Writing down all the wonderful things you will gain in your life by overcoming this fear can be powerful. Focus on those positive things to get motivated and inspired. Revisit your page of paper when you feel discouraged, uncomfortable or afraid. Even if it loses it´s inspiring effect gradually, it can be the initial trigger to unstick you. The spark to get you started to take those first actions that sends you into an upward-spiral of thought and action.

3. Seeing failure and rejection in a new light

Often it´s easier to not do something because we fear failure and rejection. We may fear failure when starting on a new career-path. And rejection from friends, family and the people around us if we fail. Or we might be afraid of being rejected when asking someone out.

However, as I have written before, the definition of failure we are brought up with in society might not be the best and most useful to have. If you look at the most successful people you quickly notice that they have a different response to failure than the more common one.

They don´t take failure or rejection that seriously. They know it´s not the end of the world if they fail. Instead they look at each failure and see the good part about: what they can learn from it and improve next time.

They have an abundance-mentality. They know that if their first business-venture fails it feels like crap for a while but it´s ok in the long run. They learn from it and then they try again.

If they are rejected for date, do they give up? Probably not. They know that next week or the week after they might find someone else that´s interesting and ask them out.

They know that there are a lot of good people out there. That there are a lot of good business opportunities out there. But they have also learned that to become successful at anything you have to fail perhaps 5, 10, 20 times or more.

The morning of day when you learned to ride a bike you fell of it time and time again. But you just brushed yourself of, perhaps cried for minutes or two and then you got up on the bike again. And towards the afternoon, or the next day, you probably started to become pretty good at riding your bike.

The same applies here. You have work on your skills to sharpen them. See failure or rejection not as something incredible negative that might end your life if it strikes. Redefine it in your mind to lessen the negative emotional impact and the fear. See failure simply as feedback on what you need to improve on. Listen to the advice the failure gives you and you will improve. And success will come.

If you fear what other may think about you if you fail, take a look at Why you should not compare yourself to others for some thoughts on the need for validation from others.

4. Being in the now

What this means is to keep yourself steadily in the now. Not letting your thoughts and emotions run away to the future or the past. That doesn´t mean that you don´t make plans, of course. You might think about asking someone out. You make plans on when to do it or perhaps what to say.

But being in the now means to not getting your mind stuck in a kind of psychological and emotional headspace that is placed in the past or future. It means not dwelling on what has gone wrong before and what could go wrong tonight or tomorrow. Such thinking will only create and ramp up your fear to the point where you feel unable to do anything. And just feel like running away.

Instead, make your plans. Then just be and don´t think about the future. Focus on the now and what needs to be done now. The future will be the now soon enough. And when you´re arrive there it will be much easier to get things done when you have created a minimal amount of stress and fear within your mind.

Whenever you feel fear, your mind is often dragged into a hypothetical, future scenario where you think you might fail. Your brain is over-analyzing a possible situation, which leads for many of us, to a negative, downward spiral of thoughts. This expands and empowers your fear to the point where you become almost paralyzed. So, how do you beat the fear in such situations?

You stop fighting. You surrender.

How to surrender:

Let me explain. By surrender, I don´t mean that you should give up and go home.

Instead, when you feel fear then accept the feeling. Don´t try to fight it or to keep it out (like many of us have learned throughout life).

Say yes to it.

Surrender and let it in.

Observe the feeling in your mind and body without labelling or judging it. If you let it in – for me the feeling then often seems physically locate itself to the middle of my chest – and just observe it for maybe a minute or two something wonderful happens. The feeling just vanishes.

I´ve mentioned this technique in several different articles already. And, yeah, I´m still amazed of how well it works.

As you surrender to the fear instead of fighting it the negative energy will pass through you and your body will release it. And you can return to focusing on the now once again.

Focusing on the now not only reduces fear but also increases the chances of you succeeding as your mind is focused, your confidence ain´t shattered and your thoughts become clear. It also makes it easier to succeed because when you are in the now you are not that self-conscious – something that quickly can lead to insecurity – but instead focused on the outside world and people you are interacting with.

I highly recommend reading the Power of Now and/or A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle to learn about more practical advice for being in the now. Both books are excellent and have, for me, been extremely revealing and helpful.

5. Redefining you, me and reality

To change yourself and overcoming fear you have to be prepared and willing to redefine yourself.

You have to be willing to try these things out for yourself and keep practising. No one can do it for you. But if you do that you can make what may seem to you to be big progress pretty quickly. And when you get used to it and these things become more and more habitual you will start to do them naturally.

But since it seems that just about everyone is addicted to their own personality, consistent change in behaviour will still probably be kinda slow and gradual (with some epiphanies).

An addiction to positivity can lessen the fear in your mind of what might happen in a new, unfamiliar situation or how someone might respond to what you are saying. A negative view of the world can create fear and hold you back. But if you, for instance, become more positive – try the Positivity Challenge! – many of the people you meet will respond in a similar manner. In general, no matter how you think about the world, people are often like a somewhat of a mirror for you.

Change will be hard if you deep down still think: I am this shy or negative or scared person. “That´s just who I am”, you tell yourself. “Always have been, always will be”. And will be the truth for you as long as you think it´s the truth. If you are prepared and ready to change, you can however rewrite what you perceive as the truth about yourself and your personality, thoughts, actions and emotions.

Something I´ve recently started to think about and apply is what´s called Subjective Reality. Although I don´t fully understand it yet – I think – basically what it means is that there is no separation on the world. There is no you and I separated from each other (like in the more common worldview many of us are accustomed to).

Instead we are one.

You might not fully understand it or internalize it – I haven´t yet – but just going into a conversation with perspective that you and the other(s) are connected and really just one can be very useful.

When you apply this perspective on the world it’s a lot harder feeling fear. Or being mean or unkind. Just like it´s hard to do those things to yourself. Without the perspective of separation it seems like you – almost automatically – become calmer, kinder, less fearful and more open. It feels like you are naturally connected to the rest of the world.

Steve Pavlina has written a lot about Subjective Reality, so if you want to explore that further I recommend this link.

As for now and for me, I am focusing mainly on numbers 4 and 5. And I believe I´m just beyond getting started. I can probably deepen the understanding and application of those two points for months and years. A replacing such deeply – socially and habitually – ingrained beliefs and ways of thinking will probably take some time.

So, I´ll get back to my thoughts on and experiences with fear in the future.

Now, what are your tips for overcoming fear?

To read on please click here

Whatever it is that scares you, here are 10 ways to help you cope with your fear and anxiety:

1. Take time out
It feels impossible to think clearly when you’re flooded with fear or anxiety. A racing heart, sweating palms and feeling panicky and confused are the result of adrenalin. So, the first thing to do is take time out so you can physically calm down.

Distract yourself from the worry for 15 minutes by walking around the block, making a cup of tea or having a bath. When you’ve physically calmed down, you’ll feel better able to decide on the best way to cope.

2. What’s the worst that can happen?
When you’re anxious about something, be it work, a relationship or an exam, it can help to think through what the worst end result could be. Even if a presentation, a call or a conversation goes horribly wrong, chances are that you and the world will survive. Sometimes the worst that can happen is a panic attack.

If you start to get a faster heartbeat or sweating palms, the best thing is not to fight it. Stay where you are and simply feel the panic without trying to distract yourself. Placing the palm of your hand on your stomach and breathing slowly and deeply (no more than 12 breaths a minute) helps soothe the body.

It may take up to an hour, but eventually the panic will go away on its own. The goal is to help the mind get used to coping with panic, which takes the fear of fear away.

3. Expose yourself to the fear
Avoiding fears only makes them scarier. If you panic one day getting into a lift, it’s best to get back into a lift the next day. Stand in the lift and feel the fear until it goes away. Whatever your fear, if you face it, it should start to fade.

4. Welcome the worst
Each time fears are embraced, it makes them easier to cope with the next time they strike, until in the end they are no longer a problem. Try imagining the worst thing that can happen – perhaps it’s panicking and having a heart attack. Then try to think yourself into having a heart attack. It’s just not possible. The fear will run away the more you chase it.

5. Get real
Fears tend to be much worse than reality. Often, people who have been attacked can’t help thinking they’re going to be attacked again every time they walk down a dark alley. But the chance that an attack will happen again is actually very low.

Similarly, people sometimes tell themselves they’re a failure because they blush when they feel self-conscious. This then makes them more upset. But blushing in stressful situations is normal. By remembering this, the anxiety goes away.

6. Don’t expect perfection
Black-and-white perfectionist thinking such as, “If I’m not the best mum in the world, I’m a failure,” or, “My DVDs aren’t all facing in the same direction, so my life is a mess,” are unrealistic and only set us up for anxiety.

Life is full of stresses, yet many of us feel that our lives must be perfect. Bad days and setbacks will always happen, and it’s essential to remember that life is messy.

7. Visualise
Take a moment to close your eyes and imagine a place of safety and calm: it could be a picture of you walking on a beautiful beach, or snuggled up in bed with the cat next to you or a happy memory from childhood. Let the positive feelings soothe you until you feel more relaxed.

8. Talk about it
Sharing fears takes away a lot of their scariness. If you can’t talk to a partner, friend or family member, call a helpline such as the Samaritans (08457 90 90 90, open 24 hours a day). And if your fears aren’t going away, ask your GP for help. GPs can refer people for counselling, psychotherapy or online help through a new online service called FearFighter.

9. Go back to basics
A good sleep, a wholesome meal and a walk are often the best cures for anxiety. The easiest way to fall asleep when worries are spiralling through the mind can be to stop trying to nod off. Instead, try to stay awake.

Many people turn to alcohol or drugs to self-treat anxiety, with the idea that it will make them feel better, but these only make nervousness worse. And eating well will make you feel great physically and mentally.

10. Reward yourself
Finally, give yourself a treat. When you’ve picked up that spider or made that call you’ve been dreading, reinforce your success by treating yourself to a candlelit bath, a massage, a country walk, a concert, a meal out, a book, a DVD or whatever little gift makes you happy.

To read on please click here

Anxiety -The Hidden Fear By Robert Heard

As most people know, anxiety can be debilitating. Most articles that have been written about anxiety and panic attacks are very superficial and do not get to the core of what is causing this condition.

Anxiety is simply a state that many of us fall into never knowing why or what to do about it. The reason we don’t examine the truth behind anxiety is because it can be so very terrifying.

Putting it as simply as I can, anxiety is a fear of the unknown initially, until we receive help from a psychotherapist. If we can find a good therapist they will tell us that anxiety evolves from a traumatic event in younger years and is triggered by an awakening in the sub-conscious and is usually accompanied by a phobia. Phobias like agoraphobia and acrophobia become an impairment to our lives and we begin to think we can never function as we once did again. A good therapist can help you find the cause of this condition and once the foundation is determined it can be dealt with using common psychotherapy practices which are mostly psycho-dynamic.

In essence, this process Is the answer to anxiety. We can do relaxation exercises, visualizations, affirmations, and many more temporary solutions that will not deal entirely with the condition at hand. Further we can take medication which will only serve to postpone the affliction’s cause. Many medications that are used to mask anxiety are accompanied by horrendous side effects and the cost is prohibitive even if they did benefit the condition, which they don’t.

In short, find yourself a very skilled therapist to help you through this horrible ordeal and be prepared to really deal with issues that are brought up. This is the only way to alleviate anxiety and remember it is much more frightening than it really is. The fear of this unknown condition perpetuates and makes us think that we are close to death when we are not and we should be hopeful that answers can be found.  As you wait for results, you can do the following to help as you get to the reality of your anxiety.

- do anything to build your self-esteem

- practice progressive muscle relaxation

- visualize a safe place

- read positive affirmations

- use positive self talk

- use a brown paper bag to breath into if hyperventilating

- picture yourself confronting your phobias and winning

- monitor your body to reinforce that you are all right

- talk to family and friends for support if you are going through this, especially a panic attack

- do not use caffeine as it increases hyperactivity