It’s All in Your Head
If you can’t get over your fears, do it scared.
I’ve always had an interesting relationship with fear. Previously, I’d avoid it like the plague. Now, I step right into it. Every time I find myself feeling afraid, I see it as a signpost — an arrow telling me to move in that direction.
The scale of my fears has changed dramatically over time. When I was younger, I’d fear things like monsters in television shows and the darkness in my bedroom. Then came my social anxiety. It sounds strange saying ‘my’ social anxiety because today, socializing isn’t something that scares me at all. But in high school, talking to new people was terrifying for me.
I was crippled by such low self-esteem. I had this pervading sense that people thought I was weird or uncool, and the fear of not fitting in was something I carried everywhere I went.
Talking to new people was my worst nightmare. What if I said something stupid, or they didn’t like my hairstyle, or they thought my clothes looked weird? Back then, that prospect was debilitating. Now, I couldn’t care less.
What changed? Well, for one, I got a decent haircut. But it wasn’t the lack of a Bieber fringe that changed my self-confidence. The determining factor was simple. I changed my relationship with fear.
