Facing your fears is hard work. There’s a lot of uncovered emotional pain beneath the surface. When you take apart the pieces of your life that are suffering from emotional turmoil, you find that you’ve been surviving in a fear-based personality.
Resisting our fears doesn’t make them go away. Avoiding our troubles adds to stress and anxiety. This is why we need a logical flow to move from our fear-based center into a positive center that sets us free.
This is where questions come into play. If you ask the right questions, eventually you come up with your own solutions.
By putting your fears “on trial”, you can free yourself from the internal “hamster wheel.” This is what happens when you remain stuck in fear, unable to move ahead, and too scared to go back.
But it doesn’t have to be this way. You can win your war against fear.
In this list, we have created 25 questions you must ask yourself about the fears you experience.
Do you know this quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson?
“Do the thing we fear, and death of fear is certain.”
I recite it at least once a day. It reminds me to always be taking action.
Here are 25 questions about fear. Take 60 minutes to think through and answer these questions about fear. It is one hour well invested.
There are no wrong answers. Take as much time as you need to work through this list. Use these questions and your answers to gauge the relationship you have with your fear.
- What would you do if you had absolutely no fear?
- What would happen to you if you took action towards the one goal that scared you the most?
- What is it you are living in fear of right now? Having no money? Being alone? Not succeeding? Now, see yourself as defeating this fear. How do you feel?
- If the one thing you feared the most were to happen today, what would you feel? How would you respond?
- What are you avoiding because you have a fear of it?
- As a follow up to #6, what do you think would happen if you take action now? What do you think won’t happen, if you don’t take action now?
- What will you do if you do take action, and it doesn’t work out as well as you thought?
- How much is your fear costing you in terms of health and happiness?
- What did you fear as a child? Teenager? How did you overcome these fears, if you did?
- What advice would you give someone [a good friend] who said they were too afraid to pursue their dreams because they could fail?
- In what ways does your fear motivate you to take action?
- Can you visualize the life you will be leading in ten years if you were to take action towards your dreams?
- Can you visualize your life if you don’t do anything and you let fear hold you back?
- Do you fear failing? Is this fear of failure going to hold you back indefinitely?
- Am I listening to the fears of other people telling me that “this is crazy” or “you shouldn’t do that”? Remember: fear is contagious. Everyone has it and they spread it like wildfire.
- Can you handle the outcome even if it isn’t the result you wanted?
- How will you handle resistance when it appears? Challenging our fears has a level of resistance to it. How you work through this resistance determines the level of success you will have.
- Do you fear ‘rocking the boat’ and being different? Are you worried what others will think if you try to succeed where they have failed? Remember: the nail that sticks out gets hammered down, but it’s the hammering that makes it tougher than the other nails.
- Is your ego invested in your fear? Does it feel unnatural to do the things that scare you? Do others look at you as if you are crazy?
- Are you hanging around with fearful people? How much time do you spend with them?
- Do you fear making mistakes? Do you think you can overcome your fear without making a mistake?
- What is the one thing that, if you did it scared, would change your life completely?
- What are the bad habits keeping you afraid?
- What negative behaviors keep you trapped?
- Do you fear what other people are thinking or saying about you?
Read more: How to Overcome Fear, Stress, and Anxiety in Your Life
We all have negative vices that block us from achieving our goals and maximizing potential. What we call fear is a necessary element to train us for pushing ahead and doing great things. By asking yourself questions about the obstacles you struggle to push against, you draw on solutions to removing these obstacles.