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6 Effective Strategies to Help You Overcome Your Fears

Fear can be a powerful force, especially when you give it an opportunity to dominate you. As a coach, you will encounter fear in different forms, both within yourself and in the coaching clients that you work with. If you don’t do anything about your fear, you will be held back from making progress towards becoming the best that you can be. Here are some tried and true strategies that you can use to overcome your fears and become the best version of yourself.

1. Understand and Name Your Fear

You cannot fight and overcome an enemy that you don’t know. For this reason, your first step towards overcoming your fear is to examine that fear and name it.

For example, are you afraid that your first coaching session will be a dismal failure? Understand that fear and put a label on it. The mere act of thinking objectively about the fear will take the edge off it, and you will be better poised to deal with that fear once you have labeled it.

Remember to also take note of how your body and mind respond each time you develop fear. For example, does your mouth become dry and a knot develops in your stomach? Note down those reactions and it will be easier for you to recognize fear when it manifests, and you will be better placed to overcome that fear once you know its telltale signs.

2. Educate Yourself

Another important strategy that you can use to overcome your fears is by educating yourself about the subject in question. This strategy is helpful because many of our fears arise from the unknown.

For example, if you are fearful about taking on coaching clients in a new niche you would like to try out, it is helpful for you to learn as much as you can about the needs of people who need help in that niche.

The more you learn about the issue that you are fearful about, the more you will strip your fear of its power since you will be armed with relevant information on the subject.

Think about it this way, would you be afraid of undergoing a dental procedure if your dentist explains each step of the procedure to you in advance and you have a chance to confirm the safety of that procedure through your own online research?

The best weapon against fear is accurate information, so educate yourself about what you fear and that fear will diminish.

3. Make Peer Pressure Your Ally

Peer pressure is often cast in a negative light, but like most things, it has a good and bad side. As you may know, human beings are social creatures who are influenced by those around them.

For this reason, you can overcome your fears by surrounding yourself with people who root for you to overcome those fears or who have experience in dealing with the issue that you are struggling with.

For example, join a group of people who are already doing what you are afraid of. You can also get a mentor, a coach or even trusted friends who believe in your abilities.

This support system will surround you with the positive energy that you need to move forward, and that positive energy will cause the negative emotions behind your fear to dissipate since darkness cannot remain where there is light.

4. Take Realistic Risks

Fear isn’t entirely a bad thing because it arises out of a need to stay safe. For example, fear alerted our ancestors to the imminent danger posed by wild animals and those people either took flight or stood and fought against the animal confronting them.

Today, there are no saber-toothed tigers to flee from, but fear still grips us firmly each time we are faced with taking a step into unfamiliar territory. We cannot let this fear stop us, because progress can only be made when we step out of our comfort zones.

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It is therefore necessary for us to think about our fears and take calculated steps forward in spite of those fears. For example, rather than quit your job to start a business, it is far better to start the business as a side hustle and then quit your job once the business grows to a level where it can sustain you. In this way, the fear that you will be ruined financially if the new business fails will be overcome.

To bring this closer home, you don’t need to quit your day job soon after completing coach training at Performance Coach University. Instead, take tentative steps so that the transition into full-time coaching is gradual.

As you use this measured approach to taking risks, you will eventually chip away at all your fears until they are gone.

5. Act on Your Fears Promptly

Fear tends to paralyze us and prevent us from taking any action. The longer this inaction lasts, the stronger the fear becomes.

It is therefore important for you to take action to combat your fear as soon as possible. However, the action that you take shouldn’t be hasty as that could present additional problems. Before you do anything, see the bigger picture and select a course of action that will serve you in the long term.

For example, if you are afraid of public speaking, the immediate action that you can take to combat this fear is by role-playing or practicing how to speak in public. This choice will serve you in the future because it sets the stage for a stellar performance when you finally take to the podium to speak.

6. Celebrate Your Successes

It is easy to let fear dominate you if you don’t have a habit of recognizing the successes that you attain in different spheres of life. Each success that you register gives your confidence a boost and gives you the courage to take on bigger challenges.

So, start keeping track of all the achievements that you attain, no matter how small. Celebrate those achievements so that you infuse your subconscious mind with the raw material that it needs to keep you looking at the positive side of every undertaking lined up before you.

The fight against our fears is an ongoing one, so don’t think that once you have banished one fear then you have banished them all. The good news in this ongoing fight is that for each fear that you overcome, you are better equipped to deal with any others that may arise later. The strategies above apply to all fears, whether it is the fear associated with raising your coaching rates or asking someone out for a date. Keep using these strategies and you will soon become unstoppable!

To Your Success,

Jairek Robbins + Team PCU


Ready to level up your coaching and leadership game? Want to make a big impact in the lives of others? Add more power to your purpose with our 12-week online Performance Coach certification course. Apply here: Course overview & Application!