While I was in school, there was this professional exam I wanted to write. However, I was a bit scared of the exam. My course mates and some of my friends that wrote the exam earlier failed it, and it was expensive to register. But I talked to myself to stop thinking about the consequences of failing the exams. So I came up with a strategy to study for it; I decided to be taking it one topic per day, and then study for 30 minutes. By the end of 3 weeks, I discovered that I already covered almost the entire topics, I gained my confidence, and the fear reduced. So I registered for the exam, and on the day to write it, it was very easy. When the result came out, I passed. When you focus on what you want to achieve, you will be surprised how your fears will constantly reduce.
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More often than not, fears often feel bigger than they are. In fact, sometimes they are just created in the mind, but are empowered by your thoughts to make them look so big. Fear can magnify uncertainties, increase consequences, and even try to make you feel like failure is something inevitable. What you should understand is that fear does not grow on its own, it feeds on imaginations, distraction, and divided attention. But to fight fear, you need to learn how to sharpen you focus. When you increase your focus, your fears will naturally shrink. You overcome fear by stopping to give it attention, and start to give attention to what matters.
Fears become stronger when the mind wanders away. When your attention is scattered over many things, you may begin to imagine negative things, which does not even seem logical. Thoughts of "what if this happens?" will start to fill your mind. This may even make you to start to brood on past failures, or even borrow worries from others, and you may begin to subtly project worse-case-scenarios into your future. This is what creates space for fear to become stronger. However, when you maintain your focus on what matters; on what you want to achieve, you will limit the space for fear to thrive.
It is your act of focus that will turn big problems into manageable steps. When you have a goal that may be looking big as a whole, try breaking it down into little bits, then focus on one at a time. You will be surprised how easy it will become. For example, starting a new business may seen like a big task, but if you break it down into phases, it will become easy. Like instead of thinking about the end-result of the business, just focus on the next step to take, and you will be surprised how doable it will be. More so, your fears will shrink. You will see that you have shifted yourself from worrying about "what if it fails?" to start thinking of what to focus on. This will weaken the grip of fear in you.
By focusing, you also learn to anchor your actions on responsibilities instead of on emotions. Fear itself is emotional, which means it reacts to uncertainties. But by maintaining your focus, you shift yourself from reacting to uncertainty to responding to purpose. Each time you focus on what you are responsible for; things like preparation, practising, learning, acquiring skills, etc, you tend to regain the sense of control.
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Focus is also rooted in evidence. For example, when you set a small task and complete it, it will prove to you that you are able to accomplish a far bigger task. Your fear will lose its power over you when you confront it with evidence. If fear comes to tell you that you cannot get something done, just remind it of the other things you have gotten done in the past. Then tell yourself that "if you could get it done in the past, then nothing stops you from getting it done again."
It is worthy to note that focus does not mean the nonexistence of fear. It means that you have made a conscious choice not to allow fear to lead you. Courage is not the absence of fear, but the intentionality to act irrespective of your fears. When you focus on learning, preparation, and purpose, your fears will constantly shrink. Even if the fear still exists, it will no longer control you, because you have gained mastery over it.
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