Books that Changed my Life: Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway by Susan Jeffers

Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway is the practical person’s guide to programming your mind to get what you want, live the way you want to live and help others do the same. Whether you fear is being alone, intimacy, public speaking, making decisions or fear of dogs, Dr. Jeffers' book will walk you through a common sense re-training of your mind to move you beyond your fear.

Jeffers maintains that at the bottom of every fear is simply the fear that you won’t be able to handle whatever life sends you way. So she asks, “If you knew you could handle anything that came your way, what would you possible have to fear?” The answer is NOTHING!

Then she offers these Five Truths about fear:

1. The fear will never go away as long as I continue to grow.

2. The only way to get rid of the fear of doing something is to go out ---and do it.

3. The only way to feel better about myself is to go out and do it.

4. Not only am I going to experience fear whenever I’m on unfamiliar territory, but so is everyone else.

5. Pushing through fear is less frightening than living with the underlying fear that comes from a feeling of helplessness.

If you activated only the principles found in this blog post, Jeffers approach to curing your fears could change your life. I have used this approach to living life for many years now. I thought my son Mark’s death—the nadir of my life—provided something no amount of mind control could see me through. I feared that I was incapable of moving forward in the face of that monstrous grief---I was wrong. Giving up or giving in to the fear of grief would have been a disservice to Mark’s life and to me. So I felt the fear and lived through it anyway.

What do you fear that you need to conquer?