Doubtless & Fearless

Doubt and fear are very strong feelings which plague our lives in numerous ways, having control over them would be a great superpower to have. I’ll preface all this by saying doubt and fear are natural reflexes which protect us from danger or making mistakes, without fear you’ll walk right up into the jungle and challenge a lion to a fist fight, and we all know how that will go. These emotions are legitimate and profitable to us, except that they can easily go overboard, and we find ourselves with an irrational amount of them.

Fear and doubt are linked to our perception of the world, some people fear spiders while others don’t, some fear heights while others don’t meanwhile those elements are constant and their effects are identical, unfortunately they can be easily be perceived differently. Added to this our ignorance plays a role as well to how much fear and doubt we have, we assume unknown circumstances and situations must be scary and so our hearts are filled with doubt and fear.

Without a grip on these emotions, there are many things we won’t be able to do, many opportunities we won’t take advantage of, simply because of the effects of perception & ignorance.

I am not implying that you should jump head first into every new situation disregarding your instincts of doubt and fear, but rather I am saying you should not let doubt and fear cloud your judgment of a specific situation. How do you get a grip on your doubt and your fear?

Getting Information

Aside from ignorance, doubt and fear arise due to a lack of information on the situation, you may have noticed that you are a lot more bold in situations you are familiar with, people you’ve known for a very long time and things you’ve done for quite a while, but in situations you have very little information, you tend to shy away from and be filled with fear. So the solution is to get as much information on those situations as you possibly can, and this will lead you in to a place of less fear and doubt.

Building self-confidence

Beyond not having enough information, sometimes the problem is from our very own selves, the problem comes from within. When we lack self-confidence, we project this doubt onto situations we face. Fear and doubt can be easily projected because as humans, we tend to apply our experience to situations we’ve never faced before, and we air on the negative side. You can have both a good and a bad experience doing something new, the next time you do a new thing then you’ll recall the bad experience you had and apply caution, approaching the new situation with fear and doubt.

To become doubtless and fearless, you have to get rid of the preexisting doubt and fear in your mind already, else it will be projected on to every new situation you find yourself in.

Embracing Failure

Above all else is the fear of failure which keeps us in a constant state of doubt and the fear of harm which keeps us in a constant state of fear. It will be insane of me to tell you not to have doubts about failure or not to fear harm, those are natural instincts which keep us not only safe but also alive. This comes down to your personal judgment, failure is a part of our lives and will always be, to get to this point you’ve had to fail countless times but you didn’t let that stop you, in the same light fear has protected you on several occasions and so its important to consider that feedback but also in the same regard, you should learn how to embrace the failure and the fear more. Let it not necessarily be something which instantly makes you run away.

Accepting your vulnerability

Another factor which keeps us in a state of doubt and fear is denying our vulnerabilities, refusing to acknowledge the limits of the things we can and can’t do. There is no need to doubt when you have already accepted that it is something you just can’t do, so you never even have to worry about trying. I won’t say its about knowing your limits but I think its more about knowing your strengths and focusing on those, I definitely don’t think people should be placing limits on themselves, you aren’t going to be good at everything, and it helps to know where you excel.

Being less invested

For there to be doubt and fear you need to be invested to a certain degree into that thing. When it is something you don’t care about then there will be less of both emotions, so it helps for you to detach yourself from the whole situation and become less invested.

Thanks for reading ☺️

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