Answer These 3 Questions To Be Fearless In Any Situation
Question your fears to be fearless
“Fear defeats more people than any other one thing in the world.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson
What are your deepest fears?
When I was young, my biggest phobia was dark hallways. I imagined there’s always a creepy monster lurking behind one of the doors. If I cross the doorway, it’ll drag me in and torture me to death. Ridiculous right?
Oftentimes, just like how I fabricated a non-existing monster out of nowhere, we tend to exaggerate and react irrationally towards fears due to our survival instinct, which is often associated with some deep-rooted insecurities, instead of facts.
We are all consequences of our history. Our behaviors are mostly guided by our subconscious mind, which is formed by our personal experiences. The subconscious mind makes up around 95% of our brainpower and handles everything our body needs to function properly. This is also where our deepest desires hide, and the most unspoken fears lurk.
So how do we address the fears we have?
If you observe any confident and fearless people, you’ll notice one thing they have in common — They are very calm in any situation.
And yes, being calm is the key to being fearless.
Under any stressful and scary situation, being calm keeps our heads straight. It allows us to examine the situation more thoroughly and think up more rational solutions.
But here’s what happened to us most of the time: We start panicking immediately and can’t think about anything but to escape.
We get too horrified and overwhelmed, so we jump to an extremely biased conclusion without a proper reasoning process.
To cool your buzzing brains down, ask yourselves these 3 questions:
“Why do I feel this way?”
“Is my feeling based on facts?”
“What would dad do?”
These three questions guide us step by step to examine situations in the most rational way and make us understand how we overreact. And lastly, tell us what’s the right thing to do.
Let’s use one of the most common fears as an example — Zoom anxiety:
I used to feel very uncomfortable having zoom meetings. Why? It feels unreal and unnatural. As someone who likes to observe and react, not seeing the people I talk to makes me anxious. Not to mention all those awkward situations (unstable connection, sudden silence, loud background noises, you name it.) you may end up with during a zoom call.
There were times when I felt like quitting the calls immediately, but here’s how I dealt with them with the three questions:
“Why do I feel this way?”
My answer: I feel like quitting because I feel awkward not seeing people’s faces. Also, this is not the way of communication that I’m used to. I’m scared of saying something wrong and being rude because if I don’t see people’s faces, I can’t grasp how they react to me.
Hmm, ok, valid. So this means that I feel scared because this way of communication is out of my comfort zone. It’s normal to feel this way, isn’t it?
“Is my feeling based on facts?”
My answer: No, it’s not. Why? I’m never a rude person, and I’m actually good at conveying myself when I talk to people in real life. The scary scenario of people getting offended is simple my overreaction, as my brain senses “danger” because it’s uncertain about what to do in a situation that it’s never been. But the fact is that zoom meeting is just like a meeting in real life. You ask questions and answer, you get the job done.
Ok, now I get it. I’m overreacting, and it’s not that scary. I’m actually capable of doing a great job.
“What would dad do?”
My answer: My dad would be totally cool about it. He’d say: “This is not a big deal, it’s not the end of the world”. But he would still be well-prepared and be himself, just like how he would do during a meeting in real life.
For this question, it could be “What would any fearless people I know do?” The idea is to find a role model that you’re familiar with to get inspired and if more, imitate. You know how he/she makes you feel, so you’ll be confident when you follow what he/she does.
“Fear is the needle that pierces us that it may carry a thread to bind us to heaven.” — James Hastings
Thinking about our fears challenges us to examine ourselves thoroughly. It uncovers the insecurities underneath our conscious mind and pushes us to face them upfront.
Something about fear is that the more you face it, the less scary it becomes. But the more you avoid it, it becomes a burden that might haunt you for life.
Instead of letting fears stop us from growing and achieving, by questioning our feelings in any stressful and anxious situation, we can understand how and why we overreact and find ways to breakthrough.
So the next time when you are scared and want to run away, don’t forget to pause and ask yourselves these three questions:
“Why do I feel this way?”
“Is my feeling based on facts?”
“What would dad do?”