How to overcome your fears

Overview

To overcome your fears, you must attack them head on. By that, I mean you must identify what you fear, break it down into small steps and do the smallest thing you can. That may start with visualising what you will do to prepare yourself to act, or taking the first tiny step forwards. You work on the thing you fear until you get feedback that enables you to realise that there is actually nothing to fear. There is absolutely no point in ignoring your fears, or thinking about them constantly without doing anything as they will only stay there, or more likely they will get worse. Practice identifying small fears, so you can deal with them quickly before they get larger and larger. Ask for advice, support or help if you need.

Systematic desensitisation

One common technique used by psychologists to help people overcome their fears and phobias is called systematic desensitisation. Systematic desensitisation was developed by psychiatrist Joseph Wolpe in the 1950s. It is based on the principle that you cannot be anxious and relaxed at the same time. (This is known as reciprocal inhibition). Therefore by teaching people to relax whilst facing their fear stimuli, they will eventually learn not to be afraid when faced with their fears.

To start with, a person learns relaxation techniques they can use to control their anxiety. They then create an anxiety hierarchy where they make a list of their least feared scenario to their most feared scenario. They then gradually expose themselves to more and more fearful stimuli using their relaxation techniques to prevent anxiety, and only moving onto the next level once they can cope with a scenario without anxiety. This is repeated until they can tolerate all levels of stimuli with no anxiety.

Your Turn!

1. Think about what it is that you fear. It may help to write things down so you can fully explore your problem, the triggers for the fear and what happens to you when you come face to face with your fear.

   E.g. I fear speaking in front of others in a meeting. I get especially fearful when I am in a meeting with unfamiliar people. I tend to retreat within myself and not say anything even though I have many ideas I would like to contribute.

   
   

2. Visualise what you want to be able to do when faced with your fear. Planning in advance how you will respond will take away the decision making process when faced with your fear, giving you a greater chance of responding in the way you want as your actions are more automatic.

   E.g. In my next meeting, I will make sure to say yes aloud when the meeting leader asks everyone for confirmation over a decision. That way I can practice speaking aloud in a meeting without actually having to speak by myself yet.

   
   

3. Now that you have planned what you will do, take the smallest step you feel capable of doing. They key is to follow your visualised plan and not let your past habits and fears emerge.

   E.g. You went to your meeting and you carried out the action you had visualised.

   
   

4. Gradually make the tasks harder and harder until you have overcome your fear.

   E.g. In my next meeting, I will put up my hand and share one idea that I have.