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Why Fear Limits Your Life Potential

Posted by MatthewNeer on Sep 24, 2009 | View Comments

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Have you ever felt like fear was preventing you from reaching your full potential in life? If so, you are certainly not alone because fear is one of the biggest

obstacles that many people face when trying to create better life circumstances.

Below are some of the most common ways that fear can hold you back:

Fear can prevent you from making positive changes.

Sometimes fear can make even the smallest changes seem extremely uncomfortable. For example, you may be deeply dissatisfied with your job, but feel nervous or uncertain about finding and applying for

a better one. Or you may have always dreamed of buying your own home but worry that the responsibility would be too much to handle.

Fear can prevent you from breaking destructive habits.

We all know that smoking, poor dietary choices, excessive alcohol and a sedentary lifestyle are a recipe for health problems, but we often gravitate toward these habits because they help numb our anxious or fearful feelings. If you have ever tried to break a bad habit like this, you know how stressful it can be

because suddenly you are filled with anxiety and you don’t know how to handle it except to run back to your “pacifiers” – the very habits you are trying to break.

Fear can prevent you from taking risks.

Many of us shy away from risk because we fear negative consequences. For example, you may hesitate to invest your money because you fear losing it, or avoid starting a new relationship because you were so hurt by the last one. What most of us fail to realize is that risk can also bring great rewards. Avoiding risk may help us avoid negative possibilities but we also miss the excitement and joy that come from positive outcomes.

Fear can prevent you from pursuing your goals.

Have you ever dreamed of doing something great but were never able to push yourself to do it? Perhaps you dreamed of being a stand-up comedian but dreaded the thought of public speaking, or you desperately wanted to be a bestselling author but were too afraid to pen that novel lurking inside of you.

Fear can prevent you from expanding your life.

Social anxiety is another common way that fear can limit your potential. It may prevent you from attending networking functions so your career or business can’t grow properly, or you may avoid taking that much needed vacation to relax and explore other cultures because you fear flying or being on a cruise ship.

How to Stop Fear from Limiting Your Potential

ebook300 It’s important to note that all of these fears are most often groundless. They are merely a perception that things “could” go wrong – but that doesn’t mean they will.

Rather than trying to force your way through the fear, you may find it easier to explore the many ways that fear can be effectively released from your mind, emotions, and body. When you know how to release the fear, you simply handle it as you would any minor obstacle and then continue on your way to creating the best life you possibly can.

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If you enjoyed this post, you might also like my eBook Article Cannon

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ProspectChannel

I can see this hold true in my life. Over coming fear to get on stage earlier in life has given me the confidence to move forward in public speaking with video and TV. Interviewing and speaking about things to send out my message is imperative to my success. I could not be here without over coming those walls of fear.
vvijayamohan

Thanks Mathew, for the reply. I should really congratulate you,for the innovative methods you adopt and advocate for inculcating Fearlessness. It is really a great service.
I just want to add one more info, from the ancient Sages of India.
At any given moment - only one Emotion can dominate our psyche; other emotions have to recede into the back ground, at least temporarily. In essence, that seems to be the technique you are also practicing.
The dominant emotion can be courage, Love, compassion or even a negative emotion like anger. When any one of these dominates our psyche, fear recedes into the back ground. So, it is our choice! We can bring any positiver emotion to the fore, forcefully - and fear will vanish soon enough! WE just won't have time for FEAR!
V.VIJAYAMOHAN

It is a great and useful Post. I am from India and I have undergone lots of advanced Yoga trainings, some of them under very great Gurus. Meditation is a particularly effective method to remove all of the negative emotions, including fear. One Great Guru defines Moksha, or the Ultimate liberation, as ABSOLUTE, TOTAL FEARLESSNESS.
We are not talking of heaven here. Heaven is not considered the ultimate possibility by these Great spiritual Gurus. Heaven, as we understand it from different religions, has gradations for the souls and not all are equal there.
We are talking of a state in which we attain the ultimate state possible for us. In that state, all are equal and one. Deepak Chopra talks of it some times.
Absolute, total fearlessness or Moksha state is considered possible, on achieving total self Knowledge.
As you move in that path up and up, your fears start dropping off one by one. And, you see and experience it your self.
Any way, thanks for looking at a very important aspect of Human Life.
MatthewNeer

Thanks for the comment V,

What you say here resonates 100% true with me. I practice and experience fearlessness every single day of my life when I skateboard. Could you imagine what kind of courage it takes to literally hurl yourself down a 12 stair handrail only to slam into the cement below, over and over again until I make the trick?

That type of stuff puts your mind through some vigorous training and really frees it in the process. I owe much of my current mindset to the "Skate Gods" for they have taught more than I could have ever asked.

Matthew
Steven Downward

Hey Matthew

Great post my firend. Fear is totally something that stops so many people and put people into a state of non-action. I know that I have been there and have been overrun by fear. But moving through it and deciding to be in control has been the key for me.

Steve
johnealrouse

Great post Matthew, you got it absolutely right about our fears being most often groundless, inspite of the huge power these fears have to stop us in our tracks if we allow them to..

I also came across this fantastic article from Deepak chopra on the same subject just today, that i think bears reproducing and suggests some more excellent approaches to releasing fear...mainly through moving our fears out of the mind and in to sensing them within the body from where we can more easily assist their release...

"Start releasing fear by reaching out and beginning to talk freely and expressively, about feeling afraid. If this seems impossible because you have been taught that fear is a sign of weakness, talk about that.

Guilt is a tremendous obstacle in this regard, and so is shame. But an opening must be found, and I believe the following steps are effective:

Be with your fear, seeing it as a bodily sensation. Think of this sensation as rooted in old energies that have been stored up. Ask that pent-up energy to flow out of your body. Assist this flow until you have released what is ready to leave right now.

Each step has its own technique. First, feeling fear as a bodily sensation gets it out of the realm of the mind. Fear has a voice. It speaks of many dangers; it accumulates scenarios of doom and whirls from one to the other without end.

As a voice, fear is extremely persuasive, yet the words are connected to bodily reactions. These are much easier to release than your thoughts. Thoughts come and go, often increasing in intensity the more you resist them. Bodily sensations are more objective.

First locate your bodily sensations of fear. These often include tightened muscles – first explore the susceptible areas of neck, forehead, chest, pit of the stomach, and lower back. Sometimes we feel pronounced weakness or heaviness in the limbs.

Fear and anxiety send up countless thoughts, but until you move the energy, attending to the thoughts will not bring lasting relief. Fear will just attach itself to a new set of thoughts. Ask for this unwanted energy to leave, and assist it to depart. This assistance, the most critical step, can be done through deep, relaxed breathing, listening, moving, making sounds, or toning.

Adapted from The Deeper Wound: Recovering the Soul from Fear and Suffering, by Deepak Chopra (Harmony Books, 2001)."

Thanks for the great post. The ebook sounds like great value as well as a free download.
Johneal
jaimemorales

Fantastic post on this topic of fear. I enjoy your writing style.. I will make sure to share this with my twitter friends right now..
Ken Pickard

Matthew,

Love the post about how fear is keeping you from your true potential. I operated from this place for a long time. I had the fear of failure and the fear of success. Yes it was a constant argument that took me a long time to resolve!

I've come to realize that fear is False Evidence Appearing Real. These thoughts must be CRUSHED if one is to overcome them and be truly successful. Thanks for your constant leadership and helping many to unlock their true potential.

Ken Pickard
The Network Dad
brucebackman

Excellent…thank you Matthew for the great ideas about dealing with the many types of fear that hold us back. I agree…fear is usually grounded in an unreasonable perception of the future. I like to call it living in the "fantasy" of the future. It is not real and therefore our fears are based upon things that are not real. We cannot even predict accurately one hour from now…how are we going to figure out tomorrow?