100 Ways To Motivate Yourself, Third Edition

26. Run toward your fear

The world’s best-kept secret is that on the other side of your fear, there is something safe and beneficial waiting for you. If you pass through even a thin curtain of fear, you will increase the confidence you have in your ability to create your life.

General George Patton said, “Fear kills more people than death.” Death kills us but once, and we usually don’t even know it. But fear kills us over and over again, subtly at times and brutally at others. But if we keep trying to avoid our fears, they will chase us down like persistent dogs. The worst thing we can do is close our eyes and pretend they don’t exist.

“Fear and pain,” says psychologist Nathaniel Branden, “should be treated as signals not to close our eyes but ...