How To Overcome The Fears You Create | Jack Canfield

Hi, I'm Jack Canfield and today I want to talk to you about how to conquer the source of all your fears so you can liberate yourself from all of them once and for all. For most of us, fear is the single biggest thing that holds us back from achieving our goals and dreams. It's one of the most common reasons people procrastinate on taking action toward their goals. We fear failure, loss or rejection. We feel fear of being embarrassed, being disappointed, of getting hurt, or fear of angering other people. So we play it safe and avoid taking risks or trying new things. Now, fear is natural, but where does it come from? Here's the deal. It comes from us, comes from you, from our own minds and imagination. It's important to remember that as humans, we've evolved to the stage where almost all of our fears are now self created. We scare ourselves by imagining negative things that are going to happen in the future. But just because we imagine these things happening, that doesn't mean they will happen or that they will be as painful as we think. That's why psychologists like to say that fear stands for F E A R Fantasized Experiences Appearing real. Because fear is all about what we think or imagine might happen, not what will happen. The good news is the since our thoughts and our images are the root source of all of our fears, that means we have the power to overcome them by changing our thoughts or our images. Instead of allowing ourselves to imagine a worst case scenario and therefore be a victim of our fears, we can take control of our own minds and consciously decide to think positive thoughts and visualize a best case scenario instead of a catastrophic one. Now here's a simple exercise to help you gain more control over your fears and and show you how unfounded they really are. First, make a list of the things you are afraid to do. These are not things you are afraid of like spiders or snakes, but instead the things you're afraid to do, such as going to sleep in a room where you've seen a spider, or picking up a snake, or going skydiving or dancing, or singing in public or scuba diving. So your list might include things such as leaving my job, going back to school, talking to my partner about our relationship, asking for a raise, investing in a stock market, buying a house, getting married, having children, or starting a business. Once you've completed your list, restate each fear in the following format. I want to blank and I scare myself by imagining blank. For example, I want to start my own business and I scare myself by imagining that I will go bankrupt and lose my house. Or I want to talk to my husband about a relationship. And I scare myself by imagining that if he knew how I really felt and what I really wanted, he would leave me. Or I really want to have children. And I scare myself by imagining that I will feel totally trapped and never have any time to do the things that I want to do. And by completing a statement for all the things that you're afraid to do, you can see how you're the one creating your fears. And by imagining a negative outcome in the future. Now let's take more control over those fears. I want you to take the last part of that statement, the fearful outcome you imagine, and transform it into something positive. For example, instead of I scare myself by imagining I'll go bankrupt and lose my house. Instead say I empower myself by imagining I will work hard and do whatever it takes to make my business a success. Instead of saying I scare myself by imagining that my husband will leave me, instead say I empower myself by imagining he will hear me and commit to working together to cultivate greater love and intimacy in our relationship. You see how each of these statements flips the fear on its head and transforms it into a powerful positive vision. So I encourage you to try this for yourself and transform all of your fears into empowering visions of success. And after you complete this exercise, you'll be able to transform your fear into power. Now here are some other strategies to help you move past any fears that might pop up faster. First, I encourage you to become more aware of your thoughts. Thoughts produce emotions. So if you want to change how you feel, change your thoughts. Whenever you feel fear, retrace your mental steps and observe. What were you thinking about? Or what were you picturing in your mind? What thoughts led to your feelings of fear? And once you identify them, it will be easier to resolve them or release them and replace them with something more positive. My second strategy to minimize fear is to consciously and intentionally choose more positive thoughts. It's challenging to rid yourself of negative thoughts simply by not thinking them. The law of replacement dictates that you can't replace something with nothing. You have to replace it with something else. Otherwise you create a mental vacuum that will suck the old thought back in. So when you notice yourself experiencing a negative fear producing thought, replace it with a positive thought instead. Like I did in the exercise I just showed you. For example, if you want to become a best selling author, be on the lookout for thoughts like what if the publishers reject my manuscript? Instead, think publishers are going to love my manuscript. And then visualize a publisher accepting your manuscript and agreeing to publish and market your book. You can even go so far as to visualize a bookstore with huge stacks of your book in the window and people lined up to get you to autograph their book. Now my third tip is to notice the physical sensations you experience when you think of fearful thought. You may feel fear as a sinking feeling in your stomach or a tightening in your shoulders and your chest, or elevated heart rate. Now notice what you feel and then consciously replace those physical sensations and with sensations you'd rather be experiencing. So focus on positive emotions such as peace and joy. And then notice what shows up in your body. Perhaps a rush of warmth in your chest and your stomach, or a smile on your face, or a tingle of delight running up your back. Imagine yourself experiencing those sensations instead and the fears you are experiencing will start to neutralize. Now my fourth piece of advice is to use affirmations to create a more positive, success oriented mindset. As you know, affirmations are powerful statements that describe the reality you want to create and they are a powerful antidote to fear. And here's how they imagine the reality you would like to create and then form a positive statement that describes it as already having been achieved. And you can start your affirmations with the words I am so happy and grateful that for example, I am so happy and grateful that now I am a New York Times best selling authority. And by stating it as already having been achieved, you create a tension between what you're saying and what your mind knows to be true. And your subconscious doesn't like this tension. And it'll begin to work overtime to resolve it, prompting you to both become more aware of resources and opportunities and it'll come up with creative ideas that will help you achieve your goal and to take more action. Now, as you practice your daily affirmations, you may find yourself thinking, what if this doesn't work? If that happens, I encourage you to change the question to what if this does work? Or why will this work? Or how will this work? You could also create an affirmation that says I am so happy and grateful that all my affirmations are working. And by shifting your thoughts to focus more on action and solutions, you'll find it easier to maintain your forward momentum. My next tip is to charge your visualizations with powerful positive emotions. For example, take the affirmation I'm so happy and grateful now that I'm a New York Times best selling author. When you take a moment to Feel the feeling you'd be feeling when you actually achieved that goal, such as happiness, joy, relief, or gratitude, you strengthen the power of that affirmation and that visualization. So you want to pretend like you are an actor and just create the feeling in your emotions and in your body. And just as the emotion of fear can paralyze you and intense positive emotions can motivate you and accelerate your journey to a greater success. Now my sixth tip is to be realistic about risk. A practical and often overlooked strategy for overcoming fear is to make sure you're not risking more than you can afford to lose. So to grow and achieve greater success, you have to risk something. Just make sure that you can bear the loss if you don't succeed the first time. My advice is to begin by taking on smaller challenges and and work your way up to the bigger ones. If you want to start your business, but you need a guaranteed income each month to pay your mortgage and stay out of debt, maybe run your business as a side gig until you have enough clients or sales to quit your job for good. And if you're starting your first job in sales, start by calling on prospects or customers who you think will be the easiest to sell to. And if you're eager to take on new responsibilities at work, start by asking to do parts of a project you're interested in, not the whole project. And if you want to run a marathon, start slowly with a simple couch to 5K running app. Master the skills you need to learn, move through your fears, and then take on bigger challenges. Now my final tip is to celebrate your successes. You've overcome countless fears to become the person you are today. Whether it was learning to ride a bike, learning to drive a car, first time you kissed someone you liked, taking risks and opening yourself to new experiences or always a little scary. But when you face your fears and take action anyway, you build up confidence in your abilities. The situation you're facing now and how your fear is manifesting now may be very different than what you experienced in the past. But you already know how to overcome your fears. You spend a lifetime doing it. You know, Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, do the thing you fear and the death of fear is certain. So I encourage you to follow Emerson's advice and do the thing you fear. It is the best possible way to grow as a person and achieve more success in life. Every successful person I know has been willing to take a leap of faith, even though they were afraid. And because they knew that if they didn't act, the opportunity would pass them by and one more thing before we go. Remember that you can also use EFT tapping to tap away your fears. I've had students and clients totally disappear fear in less than five minutes of tapping, so I encourage you to get a copy of my book Tapping into Ultimate Success to learn how to tap away your fear. In summary, recognize fear for what it is, a mental trick your ego uses to protect you from the negative outcomes it imagines might occur if you did what you want to do. But remember, you're the one creating your fear and you have the power to uncreate it and dissolve it and replace it as well. So use the techniques I have just shared with you to overcome this emotional roadblock so you can turn your dreams into reality and live the life that you truly desire. Remember, nobody achieves greatness by playing it safe. Now here's your homework to complete after watching this video, think about something you're afraid to do. Now acknowledge that you are the one that's creating that fear by saying I want to and I scare myself by imagining. Blank and then transform the second part of the statement into into a more positive outcome by saying and I empower myself by imagining. Then you fill in the positive outcome you want and then add what action you'll take to make it happen by saying and to create that outcome. I will blank repeat that to yourself a few times and see how you feel. And finally, I challenge you to do something today that up until now has scared you. If you have any questions or comments, please leave them below. And thank you for watching. And remember, nothing in your life will change for the better until you do. Now, if you found this video helpful, make sure you like it, share it with a friend who may need it, and subscribe to my channel. For more videos like this one, and for some additional resources on facing and overcoming your fears, visit my website@jackcampfield.com thanks again for watching.