How to Conquer Fear

Have you ever had the following conversation?

“Ok, go ahead!”
“I can’t. I’m too scared!”
“Why are scared? It’s going to be fine! There’s nothing to be scared of!”
“I know! But I’m still scared!”

I have definitely had many conversations like that. With myself.

We often logically know that there’s nothing to be afraid of in a particular situation – and yet we get completely paralyzed by fear. Whether it’s public speaking, or approaching someone you’re attracted to – the result is the same. We freeze up. The deer-in-headlights response.

Fear is irrational. It’s an emotion. And because fear is an emotion, you can’t make it go away by any amount of logical thinking.

Thankfully, there IS a simple (though not always easy) way to conquer fear. But before we get into that, let’s spend a little more time looking at why you can’t make fear go away just by thinking about it.

The triune brain theory

The triune brain theory is one of the most useful models I’ve ever seen for understanding human behavior. It states that our brain evolved in three stages, with the newer parts built on top of the older parts of our brains.

The deepest, most ancient part is the so-called reptilian brain. It’s located in your spinal cord and in a blob of the brain touching it. This part of the brain is responsible for the basic bodily functions like breathing and your heart rate. It’s also where reflexes reside – like pulling your hand away when you touch a hot stove, or the flight or fight response you get when you feel threatened.

The second part of our brains, built around the reptilian brain, is the mammalian brain. We have this in common with other mammals, like dogs and cats. This is where emotions reside. When you feel happy or sad, when you feel proud of your achievements, or when you feel love, that’s your mammalian brain at work.

And finally, there is the higher brain, also called the cortex. It’s the most advanced part of our brain, responsible for logical thinking. It allows you to abstract and think hypothetically. You could say your consciousness resides here, while the other two brains are mostly subconscious.

Now here’s the fun thing. The different brains don’t communicate together very well. And when the different brains disagree, the older brain always wins.

If you think about it a bit, you will realize that’s a necessity. If you’re standing around, and suddenly see a big angry bull running towards you, you can’t afford to wait for your logical brain to process the information, think about it logically, decide that the best thing to do is to run and then do it. Instead, your reptilian brain is designed to kick in, take over control of your body, do whatever it needs to do to guarantee your survival, and then give the control back to your higher brain.

Unfortunately your older brains can’t distinguish between a real physical threat (like a charging bull), and an imaginary threat (like public speaking). So when you think of getting up in front of a big audience, unless you have a lot of prior experience, you’re going to freeze up. Your reptilian brain will kick in, take over your body and make you not get up in front of all those people, in order to “guarantee your survival”.

Sure, you can consciously control your reactions to a limited extent. But in general, when two different parts of your brain wrestle for control, the older brains will win.

You can’t think your way out of fear

Since fear originates in your mammalian (and sometimes reptilian) brain, your higher brain can’t control it. Using logic will never work to conquer your fears.

Instead, you need to speak directly to your older brains. To some extent, you can do this through visualisations, affirmations and similar exercises. But I found these are luke-warm solutions at best.

Thankfully, there’s a way that’s a hundred times more effective. Taking action.

Your reptilian brain is very hands-on and down-to-earth. Logical reasoning won’t mean anything to it. But taking action? Hell, yeah!

So when you take action despite your fear, you will immediately notice more confidence. You literally transform fear into confidence by taking action.

In fact, you can think of it as a videogame. Assign a number of “fear units” to something you’re afraid of. Just think of a number that feels right. Maybe saying no to a friend is 5 fear units, while approaching someone you’re attracted to might be 100 units. Just choose a number that feels right for you.

Then, whenever you take action despite your fear, you will transform those fear units into the exact same number of cofidence units! Guaranteed!

One of my favorite personal growth authors, Doctor Paul, calls this “doing courage”. I really love that term, because it hits the nail on the head. It’s not thinking courage, or talking courage. It’s doing courage!

And another great thing I got from Doctor Paul is the exact definition of doing courage:

Do the right thing.

That’s it. Do the right thing. Courage doesn’t involved being cool, or going against the mainstream, or facing death. It’s simply about doing the right thing. Despite feeling the fear, just do what you logically know is the right thing to do. Then you are guaranteed to transform your fear into confidence.

A lot of self-improvement authors would have you believe you can get rid of fear. That’s not true. Fear will always be there. The difference between people who achieve amazing things and people who live an unremarkable life is in how they respond to fear.

Unremarkable people are simply paralyzed by fear. They let their older brains override their higher brain, and they fail to do the right thing. They stay inside their comfort zones, and then rationalize their decisions. They invent all sorts of reasons for not taking action and not doing courage, and convince their logical brain they are right. But deep inside they FEEL they didn’t do the right thing. Every time they don’t face their fears, they feel a little less alive.

People who lack the courage to act will always find a way to justify their lack of action.
- Mark Twain

The super-achievers, on the other hand, will act in the face of fear. The fears they face aren’t any smaller than the fears you and I face. In fact, they face much larger fears. But by years of consistently doing courage, they have built up huge reserves of confidence. That confidence allows them to act even in the face of huge fears as matter of factly as you or I can tie our shoelaces.

Start small

I wouldn’t expect you to immediately run out there and start speaking in front of audiences of thousands, or to approach every person you’re attracted to. Conquering that kind of fear takes a LOT of confidence.

But you can start building up your reserves immediately. Because no matter how much confidence you have right now, there will always be fears in your life that are just the right size. Not too big to completely freeze you up, yet big enough to make you feel the twang of fear, and take some effort to overcome.

Remember, conquering fear is simple. Just do the right thing.

It’s not always easy. But it’s simple.

So whether the kind of fears you face right now is approaching a millionaire with a business offer, or simply refusing a defective vegetable at your neighbourhood market, you know what to do.

The key is starting with fears that are the right size. In fact, a lot of the best learning programmes for overcoming your fear do just that. Like Toastmasters public speaking classes – in there, you know you are in a safe environment of only about two dozen people, and no matter how much you screw up your speech, everybody will congratulate you on the effort and stay positive. That alleviates a lot of the fear of public speaking.

And as you take action to conquer your fears every day, you will gather momentum. This process builds on itself exponentially. Even though you might be mortally afraid of such a simple task as asking to have your food in a restaurant done exactly the way you want it, you will soon get past that fear, and it will in fact seem ridiculously small compared to the new fears you will be facing.

And as you do courage every day, you will start to feel more happy, more passionate… more alive. Because what’s the difference between you and a rock? You take ACTION! A rock simply lies there, and lets the environment control it. The whole difference between being alive and being dead is taking action!

So don’t be a rock! Be a human! Take action, do courage, and feel the feeling of being ALIVE!

Remember, just do the right thing. It’s that simple.