Fear is a wall.  You can stand behind it and hide or you can climb up on it, stand on top of it and use it as a platform from which to soar.

You can hit up against it over and over and feel ongoing pain or you can blast through, feeling temporary  discomfort followed by unbridled freedom.

You can  fall victim to your fear or you can use it to learn valuable lessons,  make adjustments  and catapult yourself forward.

You can see is as a source of constraint or as a motivator.

While fear is a feeling,  it comes from our heads not our hearts.   Fear is initiated by a thought,  sometimes a fleeting one, that sets off a series of physiological changes in the body.  Thoughts like,  ‘I’m going to fail’,  ‘I’m going to look foolish’,  ‘people won’t respect me’,  ‘I won’t be able to make enough money’, cause you to feel a sense of danger, a threat to your identity or your well-being.  These thoughts then, cause the release of cortisol in your body, the tightening of your muscles, quickening your heart rate, dilation of your pupils, shortage of oxygen to your brain,  increased blood flow to your outer extremities  giving you the physical sensation of fear.

Fear comes from your head.  So, minimizing it from your head, makes sense.  Identify the cause of the fear.  Challenge the thoughts.  Ask yourself,  ‘Is this true?’  ‘Do I really know this is true?’  ‘If I assume this isn’t true, what might I do?’  ‘What’s really the worst thing that might happen if this doesn’t work out?’

Using logic to counter sometimes illogical thoughts can help you right size your fear and keep moving forward.