This is How You Become Fearless in Life

Learn to conquer your fears before they conquer you

“I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it… The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.” — Nelson Mandela

Do you want to know a secret?

You cannot become fearless.

Yes, that completely defeats the promise delivered in the headline, but hold on just one second.

Fear is not something you can escape, because fear is omnipresent. It’s like happiness, sadness, anger, and distress — there is no absence from fear, there is only the conquest of it. More specifically, fear is an emotion that lives in us, and it will only rise when we’re dealing with something we truly care about.

That’s because fear is an indicator of interest, and as per the words written in Steven Pressfield’s War of Art: “Fear tells us what we have to do. The more scared we are of a work or calling, the more sure we can be that we have to do it. If it means nothing to us, there’d be no Resistance.”

The question is then, not “how do you become fearless”; rather, “how do you conquer fear and not give in to it?” And it’s in understanding the subtle difference in those two questions that you truly can become “fearless.”

This is How You Become Fearless

Fear is defined as “an unpleasant emotion caused by the belief that someone or something is dangerous, likely to cause pain or a threat.”

Fear is a belief.

It’s that voice in your head that’s saying: “No, you’re not good enough! No, you won’t succeed! No, what will others think of you?”

And those thoughts seep deep into your subconcious to transform into your beliefs, which, in turn, translate into your identity.

The reality of life is this: we all experience fear. We might not be able to run away from it, but we sure can decide not to hide from it — we can decide to conquer it.

So — how do you become fearless?

You lean into your biggest fear and take action towards it — you make fear your friend, not your enemy.

Once you do, once you overcome that resistance, once you face that fear and embrace it, every other fear in your world becomes irrelevant. You just downsized your biggest fear from a massive insurmountable mountain to a mere small step forward. You stared at your fear and said: “I’m going to crush you!”

And then, you did.

That’s how you become fearless.

You take an act of courage in the direction of your fear. Then you take another. And another. In due time, all other fears dwindle into an abyss of insignificance. You conquer your biggest fear once, you end up learning how to conquer all your fears forever.

The Three Steps to Conquer Your Fears

1. Reframe fear into an equally intense emotion

In his book The Originals, Adam Grant mentions a study done at Harvard Business School where professor Alison Brooks asked students to deliver persuasive speeches in front of a judging panel. But with only two minutes to prepare, many students were “visibly shaking”.

To help them manage their fear, professor Brooks asked the students to speak three words out loud before they delivered their speech. She randomly assigned them to say either “I am calm” or “I am excited.”

This was the result:

“When students labeled their emotions as excitement, their speeches were rated as 17 percent more persuasive and 15 percent more confident than those of students who branded themselves calm. Reframing fear as excitement also motivated the speakers, boosting the average length of their speeches by 29 percent.”

The idea is this: Fear is an intense emotion; and rather than trying to suppress such a powerful emotion, what you need to do is befriend it and convert it into a different — but equally intense — emotion.

Author Susan Cain explains that “your stop system slows you down and makes you cautious and vigilant. Your go system revs you up and makes you excited.”

When it comes to fear, you want to activate your go system by channeling an emotion so strong that it matches the intensity of your fear. That’s how reframing fear into “excitement” can empower you to embrace your fear — and in doing so, conquer it.

2. Feed your Faith With a Contingency Plan

We’re always going to be faced with the decision of feeding our fear vs. feeding our faith. The question is — which one will you lean into?

One way to feed your faith is to ask yourself:

“What’s the worse that could happen?”

And once you’ve thought and journaled out what that would be, spend some time thinking of a contingency plan. This is how you think logically through fear and minimize the potential risk associated with the outcome of your action.

Prepare for the worst and acknowledge that you can handle it. This will fuel your faith and inflate your confidence to take action towards what you fear.

3. Act Without Hesitation

Author Napoleon Hill wrote:

“Fear can be effectively cured by forced repetition of acts of courage.”

Once you’ve reframed fear and channeled into a motivating emotion such as excitement, you now need to take action. You must take the leap — that’s the only way you can null the tension with your fear.

Set an intention, take the first step of action and repeat such acts of courage multiple times and you’ll ultimately become fearless.

A year ago I quit my job at Google because I was not satisfied with my role or the direction in which my life was headed. So I traveled with nothing but a backpack and freewill until I decided it was the right time to invest my savings into a business. So I did.

Was I afraid? I was terrified!

Of course, I had to battle these thoughts: “What if I fail? What if I lose everything?” But I chose to listen to this instead: “What if you try — imagine how much you could learn? What if you didn’t try? You’d live your life saying I wish I had…”

My fear of future regret was much greater than my fear of failure. And ultimately, that’s what pushed me to take action.

Regardless of the outcome — of whether my business is struggling or succeeding or whether I recoup my investment or I completely lose it — I honestly don’t care. What matters most is that I faced my biggest fear of walking straight into the unknown with the confidence that I will figure it out. And that’s exactly why today I can tell you this:

I am fearless.

I feel it in my heart. I feel it in my mind. It’s an incredible sensation.

Roman Stoic philosopher Seneca said:

“We suffer more from imagination than from reality.”

Quitting your job, investing your savings, taking a risk, taking a leap, trying something new — all these are insurmountable fears in the eyes of society. But in truth, they create more suffering in imagination than in reality.

It was only in the act of leaning in and conquering such major fears that I have now become fearless. And if I could do it, so can you.

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