How Do You "Harness" Fear?

If you are standing in front of a door that has a sign that says "fear", that is the threshold you must cross in order to succeed.

The old adage that success starts outside the comfort zone is completely true, for there is nothing to fear when you are comfortable. Therefore, there is nothing to drive you when you feel very safe. In other words, where there is comfort, there is complacency; and that is the basic enemy of success.

To be truly successful, it is essential to master fear, understand its true purpose, and use it to your advantage.

Fear is a challenge

When you're unsure about what the next steps are for your business, fear sets you off because you think you're putting your company in danger. Fear naturally causes you to avoid the challenge of moving forward.

Remember, it's a complex emotion: when you want to take a step backwards, that feeling can also propel you forward into the unknown.

Success is about taking risks and making strong decisions. The more fear stops you, the more it increases and the less easy it is to overcome.

If you really want something, but are afraid of all the risks or mistakes you might face along the way, fear has already won out. The trick is to move faster than the fear itself.

Fear is motivation

You should never let an opponent, in life and in business, make you feel weak enough to be consumed by doubt. Most of the fears you have are imaginary and do not represent a real risk to your business.

Open yourself up to fear, let it settle inside you and then become rational again. Once you are in control of your emotions you should use them as your motivator to overcome difficult situations.

When you show fear that it is wrong again and again, you develop confidence. Without fear, this characteristic cannot be generated because it is born when you achieve goals that you thought were impossible before.

Used in the right way, fear can be the single most important emotion driving you to success.

Fear as a curiosity

This emotion doesn't just appear out of nowhere. Typically, business owners tend to fear failure so they do everything they can to avoid bad experiences. However, hiding only serves to curb creativity.

To avoid becoming a victim of fear, try to use your curiosity to discover what really frightens you. When you can think clearly about what you fear, you can tell what it takes to dispel the fear.

Fear as a guide

Fear generates an automatic state of "heightened senses" that can be great advice in difficult situations.

Fear makes you pay attention to circumstances and leads you to be cautious about making strong decisions.

There are times when fear will tell you "it's now or never" and other times when it will advise you not to rush and "sleep on it".

These states will be your parameters for negotiating and planning your next steps.

Fear is useful

This feeling is neither good nor bad, just uncomfortable. It shouldn't be any more complicated than that, because if you give fear the power to paralyze you it will stop your progress.

Imagine treating fear like any other emotion. Doing this would help you understand how useful it can be and that it can be channeled in a proactive manner. You would see that fear is one of the energies that can most likely underpin your path to success.

If you begin to associate fear with opportunity, you will be able to see this feeling as a driving force in the evolution of your company and your person.

Not only that, you will discover the joy of overcoming your own limits.

Remember that everything you desire is on the other side of fear.

Fear is Wisdom

This feeling is very much related to instincts. When emotions become strong, you have no choice but to listen to them.

To use fear effectively, you must use your intuition to get out of your comfort zone. When you learn to control your most powerful emotions, they become an inexhaustible source of wisdom.

Not only that, doing the things you think you cannot accomplish is essential to gaining experience.

Fear is a catalyst

Once you understand why you're afraid of something, fear is much easier to handle. It's normal to be afraid of being "too risky" or "too different" when pursuing your dreams, but you shouldn't let your desires suffocate in the name of "social acceptability.

Fear is the catalyst, let it take you out of comfort and into greatness.

It is natural to feel fear, but it can be an emotion that forces you to move and change.

On a primitive level, fear protects you from danger, but today most of the things that cause you to be afraid have not yet happened to you or are scenarios you make in your head.

Repressing fear only serves to generate anxiety, something that robs you of the opportunity to confront your fears and let them drive you.