Perhaps the
greatest challenge you will ever face in life is the conquest of fear and the
development
of courage. Fear is, and always has been, the greatest enemy of mankind. When
Franklin D.
Roosevelt said, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself,” he was saying
that the
emotion of fear, rather than the realty of what we fear, is what causes us
anxiety,
stress, and
unhappiness. When you develop the habit of courage and unshakeable
self-confidence,
a whole new
world of possibilities opens up for you. Just imagine-what would you dare to
dream
or be or do
if you weren't afraid of anything in the whole world?
Develop the Habit of Courage
Fortunately,
the habit of courage can be learned just as any other habit is learned, through
repetition.
We need to constantly face and overcome our fears to build up the kind of
courage
that will
enable us to deal with the inevitable ups and downs of life unafraid. The
starting
point in
overcoming fear and developing courage is to look at the factors that
predispose us
toward being
afraid. The root source of most fear is childhood conditioning, usually
associated
with
destructive criticism. This causes us to develop two major types of fear. These
are the
fear of
failure, which causes us to think “I can't, I can't, I can't,” and the fear of
rejection,
which causes
us to think “I have to, I have to, I have to.” Our fears can paralyze us,
keeping
us from
taking constructive action in the direction of our dreams and goals.
