Mark Twain once said: “Courage is not absence of fear; it is control of fear, mastery of fear.” You need large amounts of self-discipline to deal courageously with all the fear-inducing events of your life. This is probably why Churchill said, “Courage is rightly considered the foremost of the virtues, for upon it, all others depend.”
According to Brian Tracy it is a fact that everyone is afraid—and usually of many things. This is normal and natural. Often, fear is necessary to preserve life, prevent injury, and guard against financial mistakes.
So if everyone is afraid, what is the difference between the brave person and the coward? Tracy believes that the only difference is that the brave person disciplines himself to confront, deal with, and act in spite of the fear. In contrast, the coward allows himself to be dominated and controlled by the fear. Someone once said that with regard to warfare, although it applies to any situation, “The difference between the hero and the coward is that the hero sticks in there five minutes longer.”
Fortunately, all fears are learned; no one is born with fears. Fears can therefore be unlearned by practicing self-discipline repeatedly with regard to fear until it goes away. The most common fears that we experience, which often sabotage all hope for success, are the fears of failure, poverty, and loss of money. These fears cause people to avoid risk of any kind and to reject opportunity when it is presented to them. They are so afraid of failure that they are almost paralyzed when it comes to taking any chances at all.
VISUALISE YOURSELF AS UNAFRAID
By visualising yourself performing with confidence and competence in an area where you are fearful, your visual image will eventually be accepted by your subconscious mind as instructions for your performance. Your self-image, the way you see yourself and think about yourself, is eventually altered by feeding your mind these positive mental pictures of yourself performing at your best.
Aristotle described courage as the “Golden Mean” between the extremes of cowardice and impetuousness. He taught that “to develop a quality that you lack, act as if you already had that quality in every situation where it is called for.” In modern terms, however, we say, “Fake it until you make it.”
You can actually change your behaviour by affirming, visualizing, and acting as if you already have the quality you desire. By affirming, by repeating the words, “I can do it!” emphatically whenever you feel afraid for any reason, you can cancel the feeling of “I cannot.”
The Law of Reversibility says that “if you feel a certain way, you will act in a manner consistent with that feeling.” But if you act in a manner consistent with that feeling, even if you do not feel it, the Law of Reversibility will create the feeling that is consistent with your actions.
This is one of the greatest breakthroughs in success psychology. You develop the courage you desire by disciplining yourself repeatedly to do the thing you fear until that fear eventually disappears—and it will.
CONFRONT YOUR FEARS
Your ability to confront, deal with, and act in spite of your fears is the key to happiness and success. One of the best exercises you can practice is to identify a person or situation in your life of which you are afraid and resolve to deal with that fear situation immediately. Do not allow it to make you unhappy for another minute. Resolve to confront the situation or person and put the fear behind you.
When you identify a fear and discipline yourself to move toward it, it grows smaller and more manageable. What is more, as your fears grow smaller, your confidence grows. Soon, your fears lose their control over you. In contrast, when you back away from a fear-inducing situation or person, your fear grows larger and larger. Soon it dominates your thinking and feeling, preoccupies you during the day, and often keeps you awake at night.
There are two types of courage that you need: First, you need the courage to launch, to take action, to take a leap of faith. You need the courage to go “all in” without any guarantee of success and with a high possibility of failure, at least in the short term. The major failing that holds most people back is that in spite of all their best intentions, they do not have the courage to take the first step.
The second type of courage that you need is called “courageous patience.” This is the ability to hang in there and continue working and fighting after you have gone all in and before you have yet seen any results or rewards. Many people can muster up the courage to take action toward a new goal, but when they see no immediate result they quickly lose heart and pull back to safety and security. They do not have staying power.
The only way to deal with a fear is to address it head-on. The natural tendency of many people is to deny that they have a problem caused by fear of some kind. They are afraid of confronting it. In turn, it becomes a major source of stress, unhappiness, and psychosomatic illness.
Be willing to deal with the situation or person directly. As Shakespeare said, “Take arms against a sea of troubles, and in so doing, end them.” The companion of fear is worry. Like twin sisters, fear and worry go around together. Mark Twain once wrote, “I have worried about a lot of things in life, and most of them never happened.” It has been estimated that 99 percent of the things that you worry about never happen. And most of the things that do happen, happen so quickly that you did not have time to worry about them in the first place.
THE DISASTER REPORT
Whenever you are worried about something, Tracy advises that, you fill out a “Disaster Report” on the situation. This will destroy your fear and worry almost instantly. This is often called the “worry buster.” The Disaster Report has four parts:
First, define the worry situation clearly. What exactly are you worried about? Very often, when you take the time to be completely
clear about the worry situation, a way to resolve the situation becomes immediately evident.
Second, identify the worst possible thing that could possibly happen if this worry situation were to take place. What is the worst thing that could possibly happen? Be clear about this. In many cases, you will see that should the worst occur, it would not ruin you. It might be inconvenient or uncomfortable, but you would eventually recover. You will find that it is probably not worth all the worry that you are devoting to it.
Third, resolve to accept the worst possible outcome, should it occur. Say to yourself, “Well, if that happens, it will not kill me. I will find a way to get along.” Most of the stress of worry comes from denial, from not being willing to face the worst possible thing that could happen. But once you have resolved to accept the worst (should it occur), all the worry and stress seem to disappear.
Fourth, begin immediately to improve on the worst. Take every step that you possibly can to make sure that the worst possible outcome does not occur. Take action immediately. Do something. Get on with it. Act quickly. Get so busy making sure that the worst thing does not happen that you have no time to worry.
In the final analysis, the only real cure for fear or worry is disciplined, purposeful action in the direction of your goals. Get so busy working on your goals or the solutions to your problems that you have no time to be afraid or to worry about anything.
When you practice the self-discipline of courage and force yourself to face any fear-inducing situation in your life, your self-esteem goes up, your self-respect increases, and your sense of personal pride grows. You eventually reach the point in life where you are not afraid of ANYTHING.
BY CAPT SAM ADDAIH (RTD)
