Face Your Fears and Follow Your Dreams [In 6 Steps Or Less]

Don’t let fear hold you back anymore. Face it and follow your dreams using tried and true tactics. There are six steps, but hey — maybe all you need is one!

Do you know what the biggest obstacle standing between you and your dreams is?

Fear.

Your fears are real and valid. They even serve a useful purpose.

But when they become so strong that they stop you from reaching your true potential?

It’s high time to put them to rest.

So how do we quiet our fears and move forward?

It isn’t quite as easy as we would like. In fact, it can be a real challenge, but the payoff is worth far more than the effort.

Many of us spend time dreaming of bigger and better things but often chalk these thoughts up to unachievable or unrealistic.

If someone were to tell you that you can succeed in living the life of your dreams, would you want to give it a shot?

It is possible. You can live that life.

Are you ready to face your fears and follow your dreams? Then follow these steps...

Identify Your Dream

Now is not the time to be vague.

When you think about who you want to spend time with, what you want your life to look like, and where you want to be — you need to be specific.

Close your eyes and put yourself there.

What is it like? 

Before you lose the vision — write it down. In order for you to make your dreams come true, you need to have a clear view of it yourself.

Writing it down makes it more real.

Next, figure out why you want that life. Hold onto that reason and let it motivate you to make the needed changes.

Put a Face to the Fears

Many times we tend to blow our fears out of proportion.

Instead of thinking about the worst possible outcome and convincing yourself that it will happen, work backward.

Identify the worst possible outcome and think about how you could react and how it would still be okay.

Then, realize that more than likely, it wouldn’t come to that — but you already have a plan if it does.

Don’t let catastrophic thinking freeze you in fear.

Break out of that distorted thinking pattern and take a realistic look at what you will have to face in order to make moves toward achieving your goals.

It’s also vital that you challenge those fears.

Are they valid? If they are a real fear, are they inevitable? If they are, you have two choices; face them or give up. Which are you willing to choose?

Seek Empowerment

Being confident about taking risks and pursuing our dreams can be a real challenge, for some more than others.

Those that do go after what they want, come what may, have one thing in common. They empower themselves.

This involves action. You need to seek this empowerment out.

Look for people that already have this confidence and learn from them.

These people can give you the confidence to push forward by sharing their own stories.

Oprah Winfrey once said, “Surround yourself with people who are going to lift you higher.”

How many fears do you think she had to face in order to be the person she is today?

Read books that teach you how to build confidence. Meditate on the subject.

Visualize what a more confident self would look like, talk like, dress like, etc.

Plan to Succeed

You’ve heard the expression, “If you don’t plan for success, then you should plan to fail.”

It holds some weight. A plan will always improve your odds of success.

Start out your plan with some long and short term goals laid out on a timeline.

As you crush your goals, you’ll gain momentum, and things will fall into place.

As you give your fears a solution, you’ll start to notice that they begin to fade.

Baby Steps

When planning out your strategy to achieve your dreams, don’t set yourself up for discouragement.

It’s important not to expect an overnight change and be realistic in how far you can go in a short amount of time.

Keep taking those baby steps, and before you know it, you can look back and see how far you’ve come.

Just take one step toward your goal daily.

With the plan that you put together, there are short term and long term goals.

Break each of those goals down even further. Make them into even smaller goals to build up to the next.

These baby steps can help you to make steady progression without making drastic changes that can be hard to face.

See Discomfort as a Sign

You should recognize that the discomfort you feel when thinking about pursuing your dreams is a mix of fear and excitement.

As humans, we don’t like to get out of our comfort zone, but amazing things tend to happen when we do.

It’s the things we are most afraid of are the things worth pursuing.

Instead of fighting against that discomfort, use the adrenaline to motivate change.

Conclusion

Your life is yours to create. You get to decide how hard you fight or how quick you are to give up.

If you do give up, you’ll stay right where you are and never grow.

With every fear that you face successfully, it will become easier to do it in the future.

Imagine what you can accomplish when fear is no longer a factor.

To reiterate what we claimed right from the get-go, having the confidence to reach for your dreams isn’t easy, but is it worth it? You bet.

[Author bio]

From Greenville, NC, and East Carolina University Alum. Cat mom of two. Been with The Grove since July 2019. Fell in love with Auburn and the SEC life!