Education(ˌejəˈkāSHən) Kills Fear(fi(ə)r)

Education(ˌejəˈkāSHən) Kills Fear(fi(ə)r)

By Steve Pavlina

A great way to overcome fear is to educate your fear into oblivion(əˈblivēən).

Consider most people’s greatest fear — public speaking. Public speaking has a lot of variables(ˈve(ə)rēəbəl) — writing and organizing(ˈôrgəˌnīz) the speech, delivering(diˈlivər) it with confidence, vocal(ˈvōkəl) variety(vəˈrīətē), voice volume(-ˌyo͞om,ˈvälyəm) and pitch(piCH), gestures(ˈjesCHər), body language, eye contact, visual(ˈviZHo͞oəl) aids(ād), achieving the speech objectives, connecting with the audience, adapting to the audience’s response, etc.(et cetera.) If you don’t have specific knowledge of how to do these things, it will just look like a gaping(ˈgāpiNG) void of uncertainty and overwhelm(ˌōvərˈ(h)welm), and fear will be the natural(ˈnaCHərəl) response.

Watch any skilled actor or actress(ˈaktris), and everything they do seems so natural — they become their character(ˈkariktər). But what you don’t see is all the subtle(ˈsətl) baby steps that were taken over a period(ˈpi(ə)rēəd) of years to reach that level of proficiency(prəˈfiSHənsē). One reason people can be genuinely(ˈjenyo͞oin) confident instead of fearful in front of a camera(ˈkam(ə)rə) or up on a stage is that they took the time to learn exactly what to do.

If you progressively(prəˈgresiv) develop your skills by learning from others who have broken it down into bite(bīt)-sized learnable chunks(CHəNGk), then fear diminishes(diˈminiSH) greatly because you know what to do. This is one of the reasons we do impromptu(imˈpräm(p)ˌt(y)o͞o) speaking at every Toastmasters(ˈtōs(t)ˌmastər) meeting. You’re expected to do poorly at it initially(iˈniSHəlē). But when you do it over and over again, you eventually become comfortable with it, so if you suddenly find yourself faced with an unexpected impromptu speaking situation, you can relax(riˈlaks) because you know how to handle it.

…

You’re unlikely to fear what you’re good at, so a great way to conquer(ˈkäNGkər) a fear is to make the commitment(kəˈmitmənt) to studying and mastering whatever it is you fear. This way you take control of the object of your fear by facing it in baby-sized confrontations(ˌkänfrənˈtāSHən). If you’re afraid of public speaking, learn to speak. If you’re afraid(əˈfrād) of not knowing what to do in a medical emergency(iˈmərjənsē), learn CPR and first aid. If you’re one of those people who can’t merge when getting on the freeway, get someone who can merge to teach you how to do it.

https://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2005/03/education-kills-fear/