Don't Let Fear Stop You

Procrastination, hesitation and avoidance are usually caused by fear. Fear creates borders that we do not dare to cross. Even something as simple as learning how to ride a bicycle can be stopped by fear.

Most of the time, fear exaggerates things negatively. It makes us enter a slippery-slope argument. An example of a slippery-slope argument would be:

"We must not give our child too much money as he would become spendthrift and not know the precious value of money. When he grows up, he is going to continue spending money this way and become bankrupt."

Another example,

"We should not slide down a slide backwards because it is dangerous to do so. When sliding down the slide backwards we do not know what is behind us. What if there are sharp objects? What if we slide out of the slide? If any of these things happen, we might break our backs and become paralyzed."

Notice that all the arguments tend to exaggerate the negative side of things. Yes, a child MIGHT become spendthrift and sliding down a slide backwards MAY be dangerous, but that doesn't mean that he/she will become bankrupt or break he/she back. When we fear or worry too much we will assume that a chain reaction of bad things will happen if we proceed on with the feared action.

Of course, some fear is good because it prevents us from hurting ourselves. I do not recommend you to go skydiving if you are uncomfortable with it. I am just saying that things are usually not as bad as we think it will be.

When problems or challenges arises, we should stop fearing and worrying about it and just do it. I think our main source of procrastination is through fear; fear that we are not able to excel in something or fear that we have too much to do and cannot complete it. I remember how I would do my POA homework first before I did others like my math homework because I am sure that I am able to complete it without getting stuck in the middle and not because I had any passion for POA. But if we take away this fear and plunge in, we would be able to do more.

Just remind yourself, things are usually not as bad as what you visualize it to be and fear is a self made emotion. So, we must not let fear control us but we control our fear.

PS: I slide down the slide backwards the other day and I survived.