Steve Pavlina - How to Overcome Fear

Smashwords Edition

The articles, newsletters, and transcribedpodcast that comprise the content of this book are the works ofSteve Pavlina.

www.stevepavlina.com

Editing and publishing by Hamlet MJ.

Copyright 2013 - Hamlet MJ. All rightsreserved.

You may not distribute this e-book in anyway. You may not sell it, or reprint any part of it without writtenconsent from the author, except for the inclusion of briefquotations in a review.

Steve Pavlina has openly shared with theworld a large body of insightful work on personal growth andconscious development for nearly a decade at www.stevepavlina.com.It has spanned a variety of topics including goal setting,motivation, productivity, success, relationships, and much more.What is arguably one of his greatest contributions to the fieldaddresses that most debilitating aspect of everyones life, to faceand overcome fear.

In this book you will find 14 inspiringarticles, two newsletters, and one transcribed podcast on how toovercome fear through various means, not the least of which isthrough courage (one of the seven principles from Steves bookPersonal Development for Smart People) that is derived froma mix of Love and Power.

It is my hope that with this compilation yougain powerful breakthroughs in your life and allow this book toserve as a nice reminder to always remain consciously courageous inthe midst of your biggest fears!

Security is mostly a superstition. It doesnot exist in nature,

nor do the children of men as a wholeexperience it.

Avoiding danger is no safer in the long runthan outright exposure.

Life is either a daring adventure, ornothing.

To keep our faces toward change and behavelike free spirits

in the presence of fate is strengthundefeatable.

- Helen Keller

In our day-to-day lives, the virtue ofcourage doesn't receive much attention. Courage is a qualityreserved for soldiers, firefighters, and activists. Security iswhat matters most today. Perhaps you were taught to avoid being toobold or too brave. It's too dangerous. Don't take unnecessaryrisks. Don't draw attention to yourself in public. Follow familytraditions. Don't talk to strangers. Keep an eye out for suspiciouspeople. Stay safe.

But a side effect of overemphasizing theimportance of personal security in your life is that it can causeyou to live reactively. Instead of setting your own goals, makingplans to achieve them, and going after them with gusto, you play itsafe. Keep working at the stable job, even though it doesn'tfulfill you. Remain in the unsatisfying relationship, even thoughyou feel dead inside compared to the passion you once had. Who areyou to think that you can buck the system? Accept your lot in life,and make the best of it. Go with the flow, and don't rock the boat.Your only hope is that the currents of life will pull you in afavorable direction.

No doubt there exist real dangers in lifeyou must avoid. But there's a huge gulf between recklessness andcourage. I'm not referring to the heroic courage required to riskyour life to save someone from a burning building. By courage Imean the ability to face down those imaginary fears and reclaim thefar more powerful life that you've denied yourself. Fear offailure. Fear of rejection. Fear of going broke. Fear of beingalone. Fear of humiliation. Fear of public speaking. Fear of beingostracized by family and friends. Fear of physical discomfort. Fearof regret. Fear of success.

How many of these fears are holding youback? How would you live if you had no fear at all? You'd stillhave your intelligence and common sense to safely navigate aroundany real dangers, but without feeling the emotion of fear, wouldyou be more willing to take risks, especially when the worst casewouldn't actually hurt you at all? Would you speak up more often,talk to more strangers, ask for more sales, dive headlong intothose ambitious projects you've been dreaming about? What if youeven learned to enjoy the things you currently fear? What kind ofdifference would that make in your life?

Have you previously convinced yourself thatyou aren't really afraid of anything... that there are always goodand logical reasons why you don't do certain things? It would berude to introduce yourself to a stranger. You shouldn't attemptpublic speaking because you don't have anything to say. Asking fora raise would be improper because you're supposed to wait until thenext formal review. They're just rationalizations though - thinkabout how your life would change if you could confidently andcourageously do these things with no fear at all.

Courage is not the absence of fear, butrather the judgment that something else is more important thanfear.

- Ambrose Redmoon

Courage is resistance to fear, mastery offear - not absence of fear.

- Mark Twain

Courage is being scared to death, butsaddling up anyway.

- John Wayne

I like the definitions of courage above,which all suggest that courage is the ability to get yourself totake action in spite of fear. The word courage derives from theLatin cor, which means "heart." But true courage is more amatter of intellect than of feeling. It requires using the uniquelyhuman part of your brain (the neocortex) to wrest control away fromthe emotional limbic brain you share in common with other mammals.Your limbic brain signals danger, but your neocortex reasons thatthe danger isn't real, so you simply feel the fear and take actionanyway. The more you learn to act in spite of fear, the more humanyou become. The more you follow the fear, the more you live like alower mammal. So the question, "Are you a man or a mouse?" isconsistent with human neurology.

Courageous people are still afraid, but theydon't let the fear paralyze them. People who lack courage will giveinto fear more often than not, which actually has the long-termeffect of strengthening the fear. When you avoid facing a fear andthen feel relieved that you escaped it, this acts as apsychological reward that reinforces the mouse-like avoidancebehavior, making you even more likely to avoid facing the fear inthe future. So the more you avoid asking someone out on a date, themore paralyzed you'll feel about taking such actions in the future.You are literally conditioning yourself to become more timid andmouse-like.

Such avoidance behavior causes stagnation inthe long run. As you get older, you reinforce your fear reactionsto the point where it's hard to even imagine yourself standing upto your fears. You begin taking your fears for granted; they becomereal to you. You cocoon yourself into a life that insulates youfrom all these fears: a stable but unhappy marriage, a job thatdoesn't require you to take risks, an income that keeps youcomfortable. Then you rationalize your behavior: You have a familyto support and can't take risks, you're too old to shift careers,you can't lose weight because you have "fat" genes. Five years...ten years... twenty years pass, and you realize that your lifehasn't changed all that much. You've settled down. All that'sreally left now is to live out the remainder of your years ascontently as possible and then settle yourself into the ground,where you'll finally achieve total safety and security.

But there's something else going on behindthe scenes, isn't there? That tiny voice in the back of your mindrecalls that this isn't the kind of life you wanted to live. Itwants more, much more. It wants you to become far wealthier, tohave an outstanding relationship, to get your body in peak physicalcondition, to learn new skills, to travel the world, to have lotsof wonderful friends, to help people in need, to make a meaningfuldifference. That voice tells you that settling into a job where yousell widgets the rest of your life just won't cut it. That voicefrowns at you when you catch a glance of your oversized belly inthe mirror or get winded going up a flight of stairs. It beamsdisappointment when it sees what's become of your family. It tellsyou that the reason you have trouble motivating yourself is thatyou aren't doing what you really ought to be doing with yourlife... because you're afraid. And if you refuse to listen, it willalways be there, nagging you about your mediocre results until youdie, full of regrets for what might have been.