The True Meaning of Fear And Why Inaction Isn’t An Option

Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less. — Marie Curie

Fear is a natural phenomenon that affects everyone. It’s like a misty tunnel that’d pop up now and then to try to impede everyone’s bright pathway. And the more you choose to only see and follow this misty tunnel, the more you fail to see the nice things that hide behind fear.

Regardless of what your fears are, the truth is that fear can be beneficial once you understand that fear won’t stop you from doing the things you want to do, rather it can help you to understand the worth of any task or challenge that you’re considering to embark on.

Fear can serve to remind you of who you are by repeatedly pointing you to the actions that you are supposed to take.

What fear does is try to hide the beautiful things of life from everyone by displaying negative pictures each time you want to embark on a task or challenge — and this can make you begin to see inaction as the right option. But what this means is that the action you’re considering to take can lead to an outcome that’d take you beyond your present status.

Fear can serve to remind you of who you are by repeatedly pointing you to the actions that you are supposed to take. Though it’d at the same time paint negative images to make you accept inaction. Nevertheless, you can through your fears know what you’d gain from taking action.

And whether you succeed or not each time you choose action over inaction, you achieve something. Your confidence level increases each time you take action amid fear and insecurities. And every experience from doing what you desired to do would make it easier for you to go after your future goals and desires without being held down by fear.

Fear can crop up at any time — and for different reasons. For example, reviews or feedback as a result of an unsatisfactory performance at the early stage of a task can trigger fear especially when you find the feedback to be demotivating. Thoughts of not being good enough would begin to settle in your mind.

Nevertheless, you can be able to continue with your task by simply understanding that receiving negative reviews or feedback doesn’t mean you’re unqualified or unworthy of what you’re trying to accomplish.

This understanding can help you to cast fear and self-doubt aside and continue with your task and get to the level where you’d begin to feel good about the process. Though negative reviews could still come, they won’t elicit fear anymore because you’ve grown your mental fortitude and become more confident by refusing to quit at the early stage.

Negative reviews and feedback shouldn’t induce fear, rather it should remind you that you still have a lot of work to do before you find yourself at the next stage. They can help you to achieve success by pointing you to specific aspects of your craft to focus on improving.

Taking action is how we grow in life — and how we learn and unlearn.

Taking action is the right way to identify the activities that are suitable for you and the ones that are not. It is from taking action that you would consistently grow to become a better version of yourself.

Fear and self-doubt aren’t the true reality. The true reality is taking action — it is what happens after an action is taken. But each time you choose inaction over action, you find yourself living a life of false reality.

A false reality is a reality you willingly accept each time you stop yourself from taking any action that you’re supposed to take. Or participating in any activity that you’d love to participate in.

It is the reality you accept by continuing to avoid doing what you’re supposed to do because of fear. You’d find yourself living a life that doesn’t reflect your true self after you’ve allowed fear and insecurities to stop you from taking actions that would have benefitted you.

How to Have a Better Understanding of Your Fears.

It pays to have a better understanding of your fear by trying to get closer to it than to succumb to it without knowing exactly what the fear is all about.

Why? Because you’d be in a better position to defeat your fears if you have a better understanding of them.

You’d know it can’t stop you from taking action. You’d also know what you can do about it. Like, how to minimize or manage the uncertainties that are causing fear and insecurities.

And one viable way to understand fear is to write it down. American writer and Entrepreneur, Tim Ferris in his TedTalk, “Why You Should Define Your Fears Instead of Your Goals” talked about the fear setting.

He attributed his biggest wins — and disasters averted to fear setting which he practices at least once a quarter.

He explains that doing a fear setting allows him to put his fears under a microscope, and get to understand them better.

He declares that you can’t know exactly what your fears are without putting them under a microscope. And that understanding your fears isn’t gonna make the hard choices easy to make, but it’d make a lot of them easier.

And in my experience, writing my fears down helps me to disempower fears. This works because negative thoughts like fear and doubt thrive in the unknown. And when you transfer all the negative thoughts that brew fear into a piece of paper, you unmask your fears and know exactly what they are.

Each time fear surfaces, try and find out more about it. And you can start by asking yourself a few critical questions like:

• What’d be your benefits if you take action? As you try to answer this question, you would begin to see some of the potential gains of what you’re trying to embark on. And with this knowledge, you’d become more motivated to embark on your goal.

• What would you gain from accepting inaction? The answers to this question would show what would be the consequences of inaction. And This would help you understand that inaction isn’t an option.

This process would help you to see why it’s worth it to take action and why inaction isn’t an option. Because as you try to answer these questions, more questions would emerge to help you break down the fake wall of fear in your mind.

How to take action is to take action. You put away unrealistic expectations and focus on getting adequately prepared so you can feel confident in your ability before embarking on any task or challenge.

Unrealistic expectations can keep you restrained. Also, being overly focused on the outcome can cause you to begin to doubt your ability to put up a performance that’d meet your satisfaction or the satisfaction of others.

Start small. Acknowledge the ability of small steps to produce amazing results later on. And let the sheer desire to expand your awareness and have a new experience propel you to take action.

Conclusion

“Don’t be afraid of your fears. They’re not there to scare you. They’re there to let you know that something is worth it. “— C. JoyBell C.

Everyone that has accomplished remarkable things in life had to first conquer fear. That’s how they’re able to step into unfamiliar territories and create new experiences and memories.

Fear can stop you from doing what you want to do. On the other hand, fear can help you to know why it’s worth it to do a particular thing even though it’d at the same time try to stop you from doing what you’re supposed to do.

But when you understand that fear can’t stop you from taking action, you’d begin to take action towards your goals and ambitions in life.

And the more you use actions to silence the voice of fear, the more confident you become. Fear and insecurities would, as a result, cease to push you into a corner where you’d sit and watch some of your desired activities in life go on without your participation.

It’s okay for fear to rear its head out once you begin to think of embarking on a task. But always remember that it is only trying to keep you confined in your comfort zone where no worthy task is tried and nothing significant is accomplished. And that’s why you’re not going to allow fear to stop you from taking action.

Action deferred could turn out to a result denied.

This story was previously published on Medium by the same author.