When it comes to living your life, you don’t want to let fear or worry hold you back. There is a lot of truth to what President Franklin D. Roosevelt said many years ago in that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself. Now truth be told, fear in its proper perspective is a good thing because it warns us of potential danger and is design to help us recognize harm.

However, fear and worrying were never meant to make decisions about your life, only to act as advice of what might or might not happen. You can listen to your fears, but never take council of them as they will lead you to missing out on so much of what life has to offer.

So, here are ten great tips to put fear, worry and anxiety in their place. By following these examples you can free yourself from the shackles that fear brings and instead live your life the way that you want.

Live for Today

There is no day quite like today to get things accomplished, so go out and explore what life has to offer. The fear that keeps you tossing and turning at night about what might happen or repeating something that has happened isn’t going to let you sleep. So, one great way to balance your life is putting any worry, fear or concern about what might have happened in the past or could happen tomorrow in its proper place so that it does not intrude on what today has to offer. Put your concerns in a box marked for tomorrow so that you can live your life right today.

“Worry never robs tomorrow of its sorrow, it only saps today of its joy.” – Leo F. Buscaglia

Once you make Your Decision, Do Not Look Back

This is a saying that is rooted in truth as all too often people make decisions only to keep thinking them over and second guessing their actions. In fact, everyone has done that from time to time. What you need to do instead is take enough time to make the best informed decision that you can and then go with it. Sure, it might work against you or worse be the wrong action to take. But that is life, so once you have made your decision, stick to it and never look back otherwise you may help cause it to fail.

“The greatest mistake you can make in life is to be continually fearing you will make one.” – Elbert Hubbard

Put Worrying on Time Limit

Basically, it does not do any good to worry about things night and day when there is nothing that you can do about them. You only hurt yourself when constantly worrying about what might or might not happen, so set a time limit on it and put it aside so that you can do other things in your life. In the stock market, they call this strategy a “stop-loss” where once a particular price is reached the stocks are sold off immediately to prevent any further damage from occurring. You will need to do the same about your worrying as well.

Surround Yourself with Positive Friends & Relationships

Look for those who support you and do not waste time with those who will drag you down into the mud. So, seek out those who enjoy what you do so that you can live a happier life.

Believe in Yourself

Arguably the most popular obstacle that stops people from living out their dream is feeling that they are simply not good enough. The truth is that you are good enough and you need to stop being discouraged and instead embrace your own value so that your dreams can become reality. Anything is possible if you have the right amount of determination and desire to make it so. Remember, people who have achieved their dreams in life were just like you when they started.

“Don’t feed your mind with negative thoughts. If you do, you will come to believe them.” – Catherine Pulsifer

Identify the Worst Thing that can Happen and Plan to Get Around It

If you are worried about what might happen, identify what that is and then plan ways to avoid it. For example, is the worst thing that could happen one of the following;

• Could you become unemployed?
• Could people see you as a failure?

You will probably find with most issues that they are not nearly as serious as you might originally think. Once you identify the worst thing that could happen, plan your strategy to avoid it and then proceed. After all, if you lose your employment there is always another job around the corner. You will start to feel better once you realize that everything has a solution if you plan for it.

Don’t be Envious

You are unique in this world, so don’t be consumed with envy towards others because you cannot be like them nor can they be just like you.

If People Hate What you are Doing, then You are on the Right Path

Criticism is a part of success. There is no one who is famous or has achieved lofty goals without being criticized. So, don’t worry about what others might think, just go ahead and live out your dreams because that is part of what people face when the achieve their success. Of course, you will always want to hear constructive criticism, but that doesn’t mean you have to listen to the attitude behind it. So, if you hear people talking you down, then you must be doing something right.

Let it Go

Everyone has done dumb, stupid things in their lives that they wish they could take back. Unfortunately, until someone invents a time machine that is not going to happen so you will need to embrace your past failures and lapses of judgment so that you can press forward. To go ahead in life means letting go of the past by forgiving yourself of the mistakes that you have made. Do not try to rationalize what happened, just accept that it did and now it is part of who you are today. From there, you can now proceed forward with your life.

Give

Finally, don’t forget to give to others of yourself as well as gifts to remind them of how important they are in your life.

“Worry a little bit every day and in a lifetime you will lose a couple of years. If something is wrong, fix it if you can. But train yourself not to worry. Worry never fixes anything.” – Mary Hemingway

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