6 Powerful Steps to Conquer Your Fears and Embrace Confidence

Anxiety, fears, and worries often take root in early childhood and, if left unaddressed, can linger throughout our lives. Fear of change can trick you into believing you’re content with your life; fear of making mistakes can render you passive; fear of appearing foolish can strip you of your confidence. If the latter resonates with you, consider exploring resources on overcoming self-doubt. Overcoming these internal battles is a journey only you can embark on. Here are several steps to help you manage and conquer your fears.

Learn to Trust Yourself

Self-doubt occasionally creeps into everyone’s mind, such as wondering if you’ve turned off the iron at home. If you frequently find yourself returning to check, pulling the door handle to ensure it’s locked, or walking through rooms to confirm the lights are off, you might be experiencing typical anxiety symptoms. To combat this, sometimes you need to physically force yourself to trust your own mind—don’t go back to check the iron. Tell yourself, “Yes, I turned it off,” and continue with your day. Once you return home and, most likely, find everything in order, life will become easier. You’ll realize you’re perfectly capable and stop tormenting yourself with doubts.

Stop Suspecting Others

Don’t cultivate a fear of betrayal, ridicule, or being set up, even if you’ve been hurt before. Suspicion fills your mind with absurd notions and conspiracy theories—push them away. We’re not suggesting you be naive—common sense is still essential. Believe that the world has more important things to do than plotting against you, and don’t look for problems where there are none.

Don’t Dwell on Things You Can’t Control

There are things you can fear endlessly, such as imagining how robots might destroy humanity, how a country’s population might die out due to unemployment, or how the Earth’s freshwater supplies might run out. What do these worries have in common? You can’t do anything about them if they do happen. This isn’t just about planetary catastrophes. If you feel fear starting with the phrase “What if?”, ask yourself if you can influence the outcome. If the answer is “no,” forget it. Throw out this anxious, futuristic garbage from your mind.

Don’t Take On Others’ Problems

It’s easy to spend an entire evening worrying about what a distant acquaintance will do now that they’ve lost their job. Focusing on problems that don’t concern you, getting stuck in meaningless negative thoughts, is another trap of fear. These thoughts lead to wondering what you would do in such a situation, asking “What if?”, and bringing you back to the previous point on our list of advice.

Recognize Your Fear

To adequately perceive your fear, it’s important to understand one thing. If you’re not lying in someone’s trunk, don’t feel someone’s breath on your neck in a dark hallway, or standing at the mouth of an erupting volcano, then everything is okay, and the fear is only in your head. Separate this emotion from reality, and you’ll see that there are no objective reasons to suffer from panic attacks. Don’t let healthy caution and foresight turn into a constant expectation of something bad.

Learn to Live in the Moment

As Dovlatov wrote, “Behind the clutter of actions, the soul was barely discernible.” Some people fill their lives with meaningless bustle just to avoid being alone with themselves and their fears. Turn off the panic illusions and try to live in the present moment. Pay attention to what your friends are saying in conversation, rather than worrying about whether they understood you correctly or if you expressed yourself clearly.

In the end, there’s nothing truly scary about being misunderstood or rejected, a distant acquaintance being fired, or the light in the bedroom possibly being left on.