"You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face...You must do the thing you think you cannot do." - Eleanor Roosevelt (1884-1962).

Fear is learned

It seems the older we get the more prone we are to allowing fear to control our lives and destroy our dreams.

Stop and think about it. Most children are fearless unless an adult has already instilled fear in them. Teenagers and even young adults continue to display mostly courageous attitudes. But as we grow, we become more fearful. Perhaps we realise there is a lot at stake at that point. Any mistake could be life-changing. We should gradually become more fearless with age because wisdom, which usually comes with age, makes us more apt to see the truth in a situation.

That fear is a myth, a creation of a weak mind, is illustrated by this acronym: FEAR- False Evidence Appearing Real.

I have many friends who were once seemingly fearless super-achievers; however, having reached their middle ages they have become more fearful that the quality of their lives have significantly suffered. They have surrendered their dreams and, literally their life to some type of fear - fear of failure, fear of rejection, fear of change, fear of success, fear of making decisions, fear of responsibility, and/or fear of commitment. It is fear, and all of its cousins (such as worry, anxiety, depression, and self-doubt), that will turn your dream of success into a chilling nightmare that haunts you into psychological paralysis.

Reiterating his words, Vic Johnson, founder of AsAManThinketh.net said "Fear can be defeated because fear is a learned response in the first place. It's said that we were only born with two fears: the fear of falling and the fear of loud noises. Every other fear you have was learned!”

Have faith One of the greatest ways to conquer fear and keep our dream alive is to use our faith. To use the words of Professor Tam David-West, Nigeria's former Petroleum Minister in an interview he granted to Nigeria’s ThisDay Newspaper on July 20, 1997, "Be not afraid. Hold on to your Faith with the buoyant hope and divine assurance that all will be well." Personally, I find solace in the scripture which says "God has not given us the spirit of fear but the spirit of love, power and a sound mind.” Moreover, the word ‘fear not’ is recorded 365 times in the Bible, which means that everyday, there is one to use.

I am a believer in the philosophy of the mountain climbers who say, "I will climb the mountain. They have told me it's too high, it's too far, it's too steep, it's too rocky, and it's too difficult. But it's my mountain. I will climb it. You'll soon see me waving from the top or you'll never see me, because unless I reach the peak, I'm not coming back." Who can argue with such resolve? Jim Rohn once said: "When confronted with such iron-will determination, I can see time, fate and circumstances calling a hasty conference and deciding, 'we might as well let him have his dream’. He's said he's going to get there or die trying."

One thing you must never allow fear to do is to stop you from achieving your dream. Never stop until all your dreams come true. Remember, obstacles and fear are the things you see when your eyes are off the target.

Do not only wish: Take ACTION Few months ago, I went to Ashburnham Place, a Christian conference and prayer centre set in glorious East Sussex countryside for church groups, retreats, holidays and conferences with one of my mentors Joe De Souza. He asked me, “if five frogs were attempting to jump out of a river, after 2 minutes how many of them would be left in the river?” I answered him by saying five frogs. The reason being that they are attempting to jump out of the river and have not jumped out of the river yet; they only attempted.

The five frogs will remain in the river if they only attempt to jump and never actually jump. Likewise, a goal will be a mere castle in the air if no attempt is taken to actualise it. If Thomas Edison, the inventor of electricity, only had the dream without attempting to bring it to life, there wouldn’t be electricity today. Many dreams have being destroyed in the realm of imagination without any attempt to bring it to life for fear – fear of failure and fear of rejection.

When we only hope or wish and never do anything to actualise it, we are simply killing the inner ability we have in bringing such goals to pass. It is when we attempt to do something about our dreams that we discover the inner capability we have in seeing it through. It is amazing how this happens, but the truth is that as time goes on, other ways of maintaining our dreams unfold, but we need to first take the bold step of attempting it

Dayo Olomu is a UK-based motivational Speaker, Human Potential Developer, Business/Life Coach, Writer, Trainer, Infopreneur, a Competent Leader and an Advance Toastmaster. His core belief is that we are all endowed with seeds of greatness, and his mission is to inspire and empower individuals and organisations to higher levels of achievement and peak performance. He is the author of best selling “4 Indispensable Strategies for Success” and the charter President of Croydon Communicators Toastmasters. Visit his website at www.dayoolomu.com or send an e-mail to info@dayoolomu.com