How to Overcome Fear and 3 of the Most Common Ones

I am afraid of a ton of things. I have a fear of heights, fear of the dark, fear of boats, plus a million others. Overcoming fear has become my greatest accomplishment in life to date. I know how to overcome fear. I’ve been practicing an awful lot lately.

There are a few things I’m not afraid of that most people are. Fear of being alone, fear of failure, and many more. I never really knew how to overcome fear until much later in life and I’m sure glad I finally figured it out.

I did a quick Google search to see what some of the most common fears were and thought I’d tackle 3 in this blog. 1 from this list and 2 other common fears not listed here. According to Google, the top 10 fears are:

fear of public speaking
fear of heights
fear of bugs (oh!)
fear of drowning (so me!)
fear of small spaces
fear of flying
fear of strangers
fear of needles/blood
fear of the dark, and
fear of zombies (wth?)

Do you have any of these fears? Maybe you have a few fears that aren’t on this list. All good. We’re all afraid of something, no matter how big or small. Fear is fear. Period.

But there is one very important thing you should remember.

Overcoming fear is extremely important. Fear stops us from doing some of the things we really want to do. It suppresses us.

We’re going to discuss how to overcome the fear so you can live your best life ever.

I wrote this article awhile back about overcoming fear. You might enjoy it and get even more pointers and inspiration!

How to overcome fear

I was always afraid of being alone. I hated going anywhere alone and hated being single. I always felt like I needed someone to hold my hand and take me places or just be by my side.

It wasn’t until much later in life, in my 50s to be exact, that I got over this fear.

When I left my last abusive relationship I took a full year and did some deep personal discovery and healing. It was the best thing I ever did. Now let me tell ya, overcoming fear is hard af. I just got so tired of being a prisoner in my own skin.

It was time to make some serious changes. I realized a few other things:

this is my life and I deserve to be happy
fear has kept me caged for far too long
if I don’t start overcoming fear, when will I?

What about your fears? Haven’t they been eating at you long enough? Of course, they have! It’s time to kick them to the curb! Boot!!!!

For too long our fears have been robbing us of the life we want to live. They robbed me for over 50 years!! That’s a hella long time!! I missed out on so much. I don’t want that to happen to you.

Let’s get down to talking about a few common fears and how to overcome fear, once and for all.

How to overcome fear and 3 of the most common ones

Fear of being alone

This is a very common fear mostly among women, unfortunately. For years we’ve been programmed to believe we need a man to complete us, take care of us, and protect us. We don’t. We need to dump that myth right now. But how do we do that?

In one simple step.

Start loving yourself and your own company!! Check out these blogs on how to love yourself more and how to affirm to yourself you are enough and you don’t need anyone, ever.

Once you start loving yourself completely, the fear of being alone will practically disappear from your life. Trust me on that one. My self-love journey was a long and tough one but I did it. Overcoming this fear was monumental for me. It also helped me start a whole new life in Guatemala, all by myself.

Yay me!! When you learn how to overcome fear, amazing things happen in your life.

Fear of Failure

Ugh. This is one eff word that makes me cringe. People toss it around like it’s confetti. First and foremost, there is no such thing as failure. Once you get that through your head, the fear of failure goes away. Just like magic. This blog I wrote might help you easily stop fear from robbing you of the life you want.

Failure doesn’t exist. You don’t fail at anything. You did something, you tried, it didn’t work. Brush off your butt and keep at it. There’s no failure. Did you know that most people don’t even try some of the stuff you already have?

That’s success my friend, not failure. Let that sink in.

Fear of Heights

Oy. This is a tough one, amirite? I’ll admit. I’m afraid of heights. A little. Ok truth be told a lot. I’m also really afraid of bridges but I have to cross a really high bridge to get to the market. I have to face my fear of heights almost daily. But I do.

The first few times I had to walk (I have a scooter now) it scared the poop out of me. I managed to overcome this fear by doing this:

as soon as I neared the bridge I would talk to myself
you’re ok Iva, just breathe Iva, don’t worry
I would walk quickly, not look over the edge and take easy breaths
I also reminded myself that no harm was going to come to me

I also went ziplining and thought I was going to have a heart attack once the guy clipped the cable to my back. Wanna know how I overcame that fear? Phew! That was a tough one but I did it.

I took many many many breaths and said “Iva, just go!!!”

And I jumped off the platform and was flying hundreds of feet in the air hanging on by only a cable. Was I afraid? You better believe it. But I faced the fear of heights and did it anyway.

See, I already kinda know how to overcome fear but that doesn’t mean I still don’t have them. I most certainly do.

That’s how you overcome fears. You just do the thing. There are probably a million books, audios, meditations, and videos on how to overcome fear but the best way to do that is to just face it.

You have to know that you are totally going to be ok, no harm will come to you and on the other side of fear is ridiculous joy!!

Overcoming fear

I’m not going to tell you it’s easy to do this. Fear is fear and it can be downright crippling but the thing is this. Once you face your first fear, whether it be the fear of public speaking, the fear of heights, the fear of small spaces, or whatever it happens to be, you feel so super proud of yourself that you actually look forward to overcoming more fears!

Yup. Just like that.

You are going to feel so amazing you’ll be jumping for joy and looking for other fears to face! You badass!

How to get rid of fear

Wouldn’t life be grand if we could completely obliterate fear altogether? Can you imagine a fearless world? How wonderful that would be. But such is not the case. I don’t think we will ever get rid of fear and for those people who say they have no fears, they’re lying. Everyone has a fear and there is no one secret trick on how to get rid of fear.

I think the best thing is to recognize fear as an emotion that can be controlled by you.

Conquering fear is liberating

I’ll tell ya right now, the most liberating feeling you will ever have is the feeling you get after conquering fear. You will feel like the most badass and the most amazing person in the world. Trust me on that one. The feeling of euphoria is indescribable. Funny this is, the more times you conquer fear, the more fear you want to face boldly just to prove that you can do it again.

It’s such an awesome feeling. Then you can look proudly at yourself in the mirror and shout “YOU GO, GIRL/BOY!!!” Oh ya, it’s that good!

Peace and Love

ox iva xo

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How to Overcome Fear and 3 of the Most Common Ones

How to overcome fear