By Dr. Uchechukwu Ogah
While majority of us are fascinated by our dream life, only a handful of persons make that to happen. Why? Because we are living our lives in fear-we fear the consequences of failure. We experience anxiety attacks when we think about the reaction of other people on our failure.
However, the essential thing that you have to do is to chase your dreams without worrying about anything. No one has the right other than you to make decisions about your life. So, make sure that you are doing your work with dedication. And one day, you will find out that you are living the life that you have dreamt of.
Whenever you are faced with fear, you always have a choice. It’s either you “FEAR EVERYTHING AND RUN (FEAR) OR FACE EVERYTHING AND RISE (FEAR).”
If you decide to choose the former, you will have capitulated before you started but if you choose the latter, you are not only being optimistic and brave, you are also, demonstrating leadership. Yes, great leaders live above their fears.
There are many causes of fear. Fear is indeed a prison! It locks up your mind from thinking out of the box. FEAR OF THE UNKNOWN: what will people say, what will happen if A or B doesn’t happen? These thoughts cause so much fear in our minds to the extent that we lose our present sense of essence. It should be noted that there’s nothing that kills a person more than fear. I ask, why are you so anxious for tomorrow? Don’t you know by thinking of tomorrow, you are losing today?
I strongly believe in Matthew 6:34, “Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.” In order to outlive fear, we must always be conscious of our thoughts. Our thoughts are the deciding factors that control how we overcome fear.
Overcoming your fears can be tough, yet easy if you play by the rules. Here’s a question to ponder on: what do you think you can accomplish if you had no fear in you? If you are able to answer this, then there is fear in you that needs to be dealt with. The next corresponding poser then is, how do you overcome this fear? You can only solve a problem if you know the cause of the problem. Meaning, your ability to identifying the cause of the problem.
Some of the ways we can overcome fear are:
-Creating Awareness: acknowledge the fact that you have it in you and devise means of solving it.
-Take Action: Do those things that scare you. Our minds and imagination are so powerful. For example, if you are scared of public speaking, you can take action by speaking to your friends in a social gathering or community. You might be surprised how amazing you will perform when you get the feedback because at creation we were not given the mindset of fear; we are overcomers. 2 Timothy 1:7, “For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.”
-Speak positively: There is power in spoken words. Yes, there is power in words. Speak into your life. You have to own your world.
In conclusion, you may have noticed that when you want something, (say, a car or a bag), suddenly, everywhere you go, you see the same car or bag. It is the RETICULAR ACTIVATING SYSTEM (RAS) in the brain that causes that to happen. Your RAS is the automatic mechanism inside your brain that brings relevant information to your attention. It is like a filter between your conscious mind and your unconscious mind. It takes instructions from your conscious mind and passes them onto your unconscious. So, you can deliberately program the RAS, choosing the exact messages you send from your conscious mind. Napoleon Hill, (author of THINK AND GROW RICH) said, that we can achieve any realistic goal if we keep on thinking of that goal, and stop thinking any negative thoughts about it.
Have a fulfilling day while remembering that you are solely responsible to live your dreams. Yes, you!
* Dr. Ogah is the Minister of State for Mines and Steel Development.