Action Plan To Tame Fear

What do you do when the thing you fear the most actually happens?  You find out you've got a chronic illness; the girl of your dreams shuns you or you're laid off from a great six-figure job you love.

In today's excerpt from Intelligence For Your Life:  Powerful Lessons For Personal Growth I share an action plan I learned from Dr. John Hart who helped me with my worst fear - stage fright.

The true secret that lies within my therapy sessions with Dr.Hart: you, too, can apply to your fears and everything you do. While you are living your life, things will go differently than you planned. When things go wrong, or just go south, you must embrace that change and take the detour. The alternative will always produce failure.

So whether you are starting a conversation with the girl of your dreams, asking your boss for a raise, or making a toast at your best friend’s wedding, use this three-step plan:

1. Own the feeling of failure. Stop fearing the unknown. Study all possibilities of failure until they will lose their power over you. If a downhill ski racer never fell during practice runs, his mind would be consumed during the race by the fear of falling.

2. Embrace change. No matter what scenario you build in your mind, what really happens will likely be different. Be prepared for change. Your PowerPoint will crash. Your wedding toast won’t be funny. You will hit a wrong note. It won’t happen every time. It won’t even happen most of the time. But it will happen. Count on it. Embrace it.

3. Prepare for your worst-case scenario. Do you have a back-up plan? Study a stand-up comic. Watch a scrambling quarterback. These people don’t just stroll into their jobs and hope for the best. They fear nothing because they know the road to success includes being both prepared and resilient. So create your own personal rescue strategy. Rehearse it. Get help from your friends if you have to. Fear has no power over you when you create a protocol to defuse it.

And here’s one last tip, which comes from several experts on our radio show: If you just can’t seem to shake the fear that consumes you, then become someone else for a while. It’s the strategy known as “act as if.” So if you have done all the preparation and you still feel shaky before that big presentation, act as if you’re Dr. Phil, Oprah, or your favorite teacher in high school. Think about their body language, their speech pattern and their poise. Act confident and it will be so.

And don’t forget to bring your smiling face along for the ride. A smile sends the message to everyone (including you!) that you are in control.

John
Email John:  johnsblog@teshmedia.com

If you are in the market for more information about overcoming fear, check out my new book Intelligence For Your Life:  Powerful Lessons For Personal Growth.  You can purchase my book at Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble.