FEAR, is an emotion that leaves no one unscathed, and can hold you hostage in your life. With a Life Tool to help you, you can conquer fear and move forward despite what feelings it may bring up. Any everyone can do this – it is not only for the brave and courageous. This tip or tool helps me every time.

You might be wondering, “How do I conquer my fears?” Well, here are some steps to follow and I guarantee that if you follow them, the outcome will be a whole lot different than just worrying about it and being paralyzed by your situation. This only serves to intensify the fear.

A phobia is an irrational fear of a specific object or situation. For instance, you may dread the sight or touch of a spider, or you may have a morbid fear of heights (acrophobia). Such fears do not usually prevent you from leading a normal life; you simply avoid spiders or high places. Fear of confined spaces (claustrophobia) is more of a problem, since it may make you unable to use cars, trains and elevators, but most claustrophobic people manage to overcome their fears. Some phobias, however, may make normal life virtually impossible. A common example is agoraphobia, which is generally defined as fear of open spaces. For agoraphobic people an open space may be not just a park or field but anywhere outside their own home. The phobia may also involve extreme shyness - a fear of society that is closely associated with the withdrawal symptoms of depression . If you suffer from agoraphobia or any other phobia, the need to face whatever you fear can bring on the symptoms of anxiety , including anxiety attacks.

What is The Treatment?

Self-help: To combat a relatively mild phobia, try to force yourself to come to grips with it gradually. This process is called "desensitization." If you abhor spiders, for ex­ample, start by looking at pictures of them. Next, make yourself stay in a room with one. Then look at one closely. Finally, let one run over your hand. Or, if agoraphobia makes you dread shopping, begin by going to small shops and gradually increase store size until large stores no longer terrify you.

QUOTE: "Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine... And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others." —Marianne Williamson

During a Mastermind session last week, I got clear on the ONE obstacle standing between me and doubling my business next year. Contrary to what I originally thought, it's not a lack of knowledge, of what to do next or a marketing challenge. I actually know exactly what to do to double my business. For me, it's a question of leveraging my time, my marketing and my resources so that I can help many, many more solo-preneurs get more clients, create systems for marketing, clean up their mindset and give them the tools and the permission to succeed. That's my purpose and it's fun for me.

What's actually been holding me back is something much more internal. It's the deeply ingrained fear that the bigger I get, meaning the bigger my business gets, the more I will make myself a target for criticism and "pot shots". Here's why:

For years, I've witnessed women entrepreneurs truly succeed and watched as others began to pick them apart, to criticize them and sometimes trash them, even when they didn't know them. Have you noticed that too? Ironically enough, it's usually other women doing the criticizing (instead of the supporting), and I'm sad to say, I've partaken in that sometimes too, even when I didn't know the person. I regret it, especially as I'm poised to be in the very same position sometime soon.

"Liberty or death" is a necessary law of soul growth . . . you will never be free from bondage or domination of others until you are free from fear . . . only you can break the chains that bind you . . . freedom under God is all good . . . you were born to be free . . . put your free will to work to gain the knowledge, experience and self-expression you desire.

Some helpful pointers to aid you in this quest for freedom are:

1. The door that leads into a prison also leads out - the door of thought.

2. Hunger for knowledge will never die, but rather increase in the Soul of man as time goes on. Our need for self-expression increases as we learn more and more.

3. When you want freedom badly enough you will get it.

We are now ready to take the next step in overcoming fear, which is: Learn quickly to trace, place and erase an uneasiness before it becomes a fully developed fear. We do this as follows:

1. When you are conscious of an uneasy feeling, something is not quite right, trace it to its rising point. It will have to do with the threat of some desired good. Name it, as need for a better job, or threat of losing an old one.

Why must we consider the fear as good?

When one speaks of the fear, I believe that the first thing that it is necessary to highlight that being afraid it is good, it is something necessary in our learning process, since it teaches us to avoid dangerous things as putting our fingers into the plug, to cross the street without looking to the sides, etc.

But the fear is not something natural, but rather it is something learned. The babes only fear two things:

* The strong noises

* To fall down

And their parents teach them to fear all the other things that they fear. I know that they do it with the intention of protecting the baby, although they sometimes exaggerate and end up raising fearful children.

When a child suffers pain, he knows perfectly well that he doesn't like that, because he is experiencing it in his own flesh and blood, he doesn't need anybody to explain to him that that is bad; but when an adult inculcates fear in a children, he doesn't know what to expect, he doesn't know exactly what is it that it's going to happen, and everything is left to his imagination. In some cases this can end up with an unjustified extreme fear.

Everybody deals with anxiety and depression, however some people have a hard time in managing it. As a result, here is a brief list of techniques that a person can use to help manage their most persistent fears and every day anxieties.

When facing a current or upcoming task that overwhelms you with a lot of anxiety, the first thing you can do is to divide the task into a series of smaller steps. Completing these smaller tasks one at a time will make the stress more manageable and increases your chances of success.

Sometimes we get stressed out when everything happens all at once. When this happens, a person should take a deep breath and try to find something to do for a few minutes to get their mind off of the problem. A person could get some fresh air, listen to some music, or do an activity that will give them a fresh perspective on things.