100. “We are more often frightened than hurt, and we suffer more in imagination than in reality.”

Fear is one factor that keeps people from achieving their true potential. But what do we really afraid of?

Most of the time, the fear basically originates from the unknown and is almost never real. Fear is mostly about losing something or someone dear to you, at times it is of things acquired in the past and of things one may acquire in the future but they don’t have now.

Then there is fear of public opinion. “What will people think about me?”

The day someone realizes that people are inherently selfish in nature and do not have time to think about other people, they will eventually lose the fear and start to excel in life because their core focus will be work and not people’s opinions.

80% of people don’t care what you say or do and the rest of the 20%, well they don’t care either.

No one knows the future and no matter how many people claim what they prognosticate about the future, no one can predict the future with absolute certainty.

That is one useful piece of advice for stock market investors as well. Don’t ever give your hard-earned money to fake internet gurus.

Fear stops people from achieving their true potential. If there is a list of things that make people fail in the goals of their life then fear would top that list.

Let’s take the example of writing a book. I often take the example of writing a book because that is what I love to do most.

Consider this — if you have, the fear of selling the book, prior to its writing, you will never write the book. Fear will bring uncertainty in your mind that whether you will be able to sell that book or not. The fear will cause you to lose your confidence and whatever you are going to write, won’t be good as it will be driven by the fear.

The beauty of the uncertain future is that there is always a 50% probability of the event happening to not happening. Focus on the 50% where the thing will happen and work as there cannot be another 50%.

In reality, it can fail or it can succeed. Aamir Khan really worked hard on the movie “Lal Singh Chaddha” but it flopped badly. Not every time your efforts will be rewarded but fear will increase the percentage of failure in your favor.

The fears are all in our minds and we suffer because of them. We predict the future and that is the cause of every misery.

Lee Child said in an interview that he began writing at 40 when he was broke. He was too afraid to begin earlier so he fooled his mind that whatever book he would write, it would be a sure-shot bestseller and would sell in millions. Without fooling his mind in that manner I don’t think he would be able to complete his book in the best possible way.

Over time I have realized that fear is an innate part of the human mind and we cannot escape it. Whenever we are about to start something, we fear. That is why most dreams remain a dream.

The only way to get over the fear is to first identify the cause of the fear and then seek the truth on your own that whether that fear has a probability of ever happening or is it just an exaggerated negative thought.

You know what — the best way to find out whether your book will sell or not is to find out by writing one and sending it to publishers. Any other way is mere procrastination and bowing down to fear.

The book you wrote might publish or it might not publish, but in both cases, you will get over the fear.

To spend one’s entire life in fear is not just plain stupid but irrational.

If you read books by Pick up Artists then you will realize that most people don’t approach girls because of fear when most girls are waiting for someone to ask them out.

The thought that the girl you are infatuated with might say yes or no is a sheer waste of time and opportunities. Well, also the only way to find out how interested she is, is to go and ask her. Get over the fear, go to her, propose to her, get rejected, and move on to the next girl.

Important point to be noted My lord, the surety is the fear killer.

Another simple example for dudes who like to cook. If you don’t know how to cook a delicious Tandoori chicken, then you might never make it and will always have a fear of what might go wrong. But if you know how to make tandoori chicken, then there will be no fear.

The root cause of fear is mostly a lack of specified knowledge or it can also be attributed to improper knowledge. Once you know something, viola, there is no fear.

A person starts to work in an office, he will have fear of what might go wrong but the same person after three months won’t have the same fears and anxieties because now, he knows how to do things.

There is one more killer of fear and that is positive thinking.

Most people think that positive thinking won’t change the problems in their life or make the world a better place. That is actually true.

Positive thinking doesn’t bring a change in the world, it brings a change in you. Positive thinking doesn’t mean those bad things won’t happen to you. It simply means that you won’t cry over bad things like you used to.

We don’t suffer as much in real life as we do in our imagination. It is all in the mind folks.

Someone says something to someone in a moment of heat and the person who said it moves on. Maybe he didn’t mean it as an insult and just said it as a manner of impulse but maybe you took it as an insult and started thinking over it and kept exaggerating it till it makes your life hell.

See. How a simple event ruined the sleep of your night because you overthought it.

Our mind has great powers of exaggerating events in the direction where we want them to go. Our mind sometimes confuses reality and makes things up.

But on the other hand, if we keep thinking about one thing, again and again, our mind starts to believe it. Negative thoughts are easier to believe and it is inherent human nature, that is why we have to work hard to think positively.

Kill the fear by facing it. By facing it I mean get the facts on the table, then go and do it. Believe me, the worse we think never happens in reality.