•     Speaking in public

    •     Flying

    •     Falling in love

    •     Looking stupid in front of others

    •     Changing careers or making any change

    •     Growing old or dying

    •     Saying the wrong thing and looking foolish

    •     Wearing the wrong outfit and looking unfashionable

    •     Being a bad parent

    •    People finding out that you are actually a fraud

    •    Disappointing someone you love

Conquering fear can include changing your attitude. Do you remember past times when you were fearful of something but once that situation passed you wondered what it was that had held a grip of fear over you in the first place?

Recently I had a coaching client, let’s call him Dave, who was afraid of having a meeting with his boss. Dave was concerned that when he next met with his superior there was going to be a painful outcome from their interaction. We examined what was the worst thing that could result and the best answer he could come up with was that his boss would fire him.

Now this was his first thought but after some conversation he realized that this was very unlikely, based on what their meeting was going to be dealing with. However, this is what first came to mind. This is not unlike how many of us think at first blush; we often fear the worst.

We then looked at other possible scenarios to uncover all the hidden fears of repercussions that might ensue. Each time we did so, Dave became the first one to say that each thought was redundant. Soon he was much calmer about the prospect of his meeting.

Next I had him set an intention of how he wanted this meeting to go. Of course, he could only control his actions, thoughts and beliefs. Dave decided that no matter what his boss said, he himself would be calm, collected and cool. He was to bring a much more positive energy to the engagement, which was a considerably better attitude than he was first prepared for.

When we next spoke, he was delighted to confirm that the meeting had gone very well. He couldn’t believe how much he had feared this meeting only days earlier.  

Is there a cost to being fearful? Absolutely! One of the biggest things that fear can do is to cause us to be paralyzed and not move through it. When we do this we can miss out on so many things, such as opportunities that we are not aware of, being alone, staying afraid and not living life to the fullest. Not only that, but we can miss out on living to our highest potential and also blessing the lives of others.

Susan Jeffers, in her book Feel the Fear And Do It Anyway asserts that fear is primarily an educational problem. That if we can reeducate our minds, we can accept that fear is a fact of life rather than a barrier.

My little niece turned eight last year and was to be baptized into her church by being totally immersed in water. This is a young girl who loves to swim and is pretty fearless as far as I am concerned. However hearing everyone talk about how nervous she must be, she was all of a sudden overtaken by fear of the water. I thought it amazing how quickly we can take on other people’s fear for ourselves.

How to conquer fear? To silence fear, it is important to take action. What action? Well there is no one action for everyone as we all experience fear on many different levels and over many varied areas of our lives.

Sometimes it is a case of analyzing what your fear is and examining if it is based on reality or on what you are only imagining, and then possibly blowing out of proportion.

For myself, I had always had a fear of heights and recently I had the chance to overcome that fear while I was visiting the Grand Canyon. The Hualapai Indians have something called a ‘Skywalk’ which essentially is a glass bottomed semicircular bridge that stands 4,000 feet over a cliff of the canyon. For $20, I got to walk around this glass enclosure and finally overcome this fear once and for all. What a bargain.

By taking this action I was able to move past my fear. Was it easy? Oh no, there were some moments of heart palpitations and beads of sweat until I got about half way. Once there I realized that this was a safe structure that had already carried the weight of thousands of people without losing a single soul. It then became easier to complete my little journey.

Something to think about. Think for a minute what you fear… is it based on reality? If you imagined the worst possible scenario, is it really that bad? Are you prepared to walk through that fear to the other side?

_{• Sharon Worsley, CEO of Live With Intent, is a personal leadership coach and motivational speaker. Her signature keynote ‘Live By Choice, Not By Chance’ assists individuals and organizations to become clear on how they can ensure the quality of their life or organization. To receive her monthly e-zine, send an email to This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it with subscribe in the subject line.}