Get over Fear in 20 Seconds

Everyone feels fear in life. But the thing is that fear is not real, it doesn’t exist, it’s not a living thing. It is just an illusion. Yet we give it so much power! We spend so much time avoiding this thing called fear.

A thing that isn’t even real!! It’s all a façade. How silly is that!?!

Usually when we feel fearful of something, it is just the thought of the experience, not the actual experience itself. The fear builds up the more we think about the experience or event, and it can get bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger…until it shuts us down completely. It gets so big that we will avoid the entire fearful thing altogether.

The funny thing is that it’s not the actual experience or event that we fear. Think about it. How many times have you felt fearful or anxious before you did something… and then once you started, you were just fine?

Maybe it was a public speaking event that you were once frightened of.  I have talked to so many people that will do whatever they can to avoid having to get up in front of people and speak. Yet, when they finally do it, guess what? It’s fine! They didn’t pass out, they didn’t have a heart attack. No one laughed at them or threw anything at them. They were fine. It was okay. Not the end of the world.

Maybe the thing you fear is asking the person you have a crush on out on a date. Maybe it’s walking up to bat in the 9th inning, bases loaded. In our lifetime, we will be in so many fearful situations. And guess what? They will all end up being okay. We will be just fine.

It is the anticipation, not the actual experience, that causes the fear.

The good news is that we don’t have to let fear outdo us. We can train ourselves to not run away when we feel the fear, but to feel the fear and take action towards it anyway.

It only takes 20 seconds. Yep, just 20 seconds of courage. It only takes 20 seconds to…

• Pick up the phone and call the dream client.
• Walk up to a stranger and say hello.
• Bite your tongue when you want to say that mean thing to your spouse.
• Volunteer to speak up in a meeting.
• Jump up on the stage.
• Voice your opinion even when it’s not popular.
• Say No even when someone else is going to be upset about it.

Each of those things only requires 20 seconds of courage. That’s It! 20 little seconds. We can do anything for 20 seconds, amIright?!
There are so many things that we feel fearful of that we end up missing out in life. But the thing is that we would actually be okay. We don’t have to avoid those situations that may make us feel fearful. We can get over our fear in 20 seconds.

When we feel the fear rise up inside, we don’t have to avoid it. We can take a different approach.

We can close our eyes, breathe deeply, get centered. Then when we open our eyes, we can go straight for that fearful thing for 20 seconds.  We can run right into it. Only 20 seconds.

Think about the breakthroughs we can have if we just gave it 20 seconds!!

20, 19, 18, 17, 16, 15, 14, 13, 12, 11, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1…that’s it!

In the comments below, tell me, what is the fearful thing that you are going to spend 20 seconds running towards today?