What would your life be like without fear? Would you have a better career and more money? More fun through great life leaps and bold successes in your conquest of the opposite sex? More and better relationships because you left behind the fear of being hurt?
We hear individuals’ barriers to their dreams every day, and fear is always at their core. On the other hand, we see people working through those fears toward bold steps every day as well, but only by finding a medium that resonates with them.
Looking for yet another completely unique way to present philosophies for dealing with fear that might strike a chord with you, we have collected the words of modern-day celebrities. Aside from our men and women in uniform, celebrities likely are a select group that has had to surmount the most fear to put themselves out there and succeed. All of the individuals below are still with us, dealing with the modern world you face every day. That said, we have excluded the words of self-help gurus since they are in the business of devising such memes. Enjoy these excerpts from brainyquote.com, maybe write some down that resonate, and keep them visible in your daily lives.
Muscling Through
The approach of purely fighting through the wall of fear is certainly an option, albeit easier said than done for most. It often entails adopting mantras and belief systems that resonate so much with those who hold them that they pervade everyday life.
– Courage is managing fear to accomplish what you want to accomplish. And it’s a great demonstration of love. It’s really what love is. It’s finding areas in which other people are more important than you. –Rudy Giuliani
– Failure isn’t an option. I’ve erased the word ‘fear’ from my vocabulary, and I think when you erase fear, you can’t fail. –Alicia Keys
– The world is full of a lot of fear and a lot of negativity, and a lot of judgment. I just think people need to start shifting into joy and happiness. As corny as it sounds, we need to make a shift. –Ellen DeGeneres
– I don’t walk around with fear. I walk around with strength. I believe in cause and effect. –Melanie Griffin
– I have no fear of death. More important, I don’t fear life. –Steven Seagal
– I think when you move past your fear and you go after your dreams wholeheartedly, you become free. –LL Cool J
– I’ve done plenty of daredeviling – from white-water rafting to bungee jumping. But I think the most fearless was hosting the Emmy Awards. It was overwhelming, and I definitely had to leave fear at the door. –Neil Patrick Harris
– I’ve probably earned the right to screw up a few times. I don’t want the fear of failure to stop me from doing what I really care about. –Emma Watson
– Remember your dreams and fight for them. You must know what you want from life. There is just one thing that makes your dream become impossible: the fear of failure. –Paul Coelho
– You just have to get rid of fear and confront the world. Look at yourself in the mirror and say to yourself, ‘I love you and nothing will destroy you and you’re not going to fall. –Ricky Martin
Embracing Fear
Those who have experienced the fruits of arriving at the other side of fear (and/or have extensively seen others do so) learn to embrace it as a compass toward destinations of great reward.
– Everything we do in life is based on fear, especially love. –Mel Brooks
– For me personally, I have a fear of, ‘If I stop, I’m going to die.’ If I stop doing the things that are enriching to me or creatively exciting to me or if I stop creating, then I feel stagnant. If something isn’t growing, it’s dying. –Chris Hardwick
– Greatness comes from fear. Fear can either shut us down and we go home, or we fight through it. –Lionel Richie
– I have fear of failure …. You don’t deny it, but you also don’t capitulate to it. You embrace it. –Kobe Bryant
– I think fear is what keeps us from going over the edge. I mean, as a race car driver, I don’t think what makes a good race car driver is a fearless person. I think it’s somebody that is comfortable being behind the wheel of something that’s somewhat out of control. –Jeff Gordon
– I was probably more scared of my high school exams than I was of the Oscars. At the time you think it’s everything and if you don’t do well, your life’s over. Opportunities are gone. So the more you do it, the less the fear is present. –Hugh Jackman
– If you have stage fright, it never goes away. But then I wonder: is the key to that magical performance because of the fear? –Stevie Nicks
– My sister travels with me, and she’s the person who keeps me in line, whether I like it or not. I trust her and also have a good, healthy fear of her. –Katy Perry
– Nothing gives a fearful man more courage than another’s fear. –Umberto Eco
– People say to me all the time, ‘You have no fear.’ I tell them, ‘No, that’s not true. I’m scared all the time. You have to have fear in order to have courage. I’m a courageous person because I’m a scared person.’ –Ronda Rousey
– We hold back our true feelings and beliefs, whether it’s from a sense of being polite or fear of hurting someone’s feelings. But what I have seen on ‘The Oprah Winfrey Show’ is that no one benefits from holding back and keeping things bottled up inside. So I pride myself on speaking my mind and not being afraid to give honest feedback. –Nate Berkus
Relativity
Many understand the stasis, humiliation, and lives not lived resulting from constant fear and keep that top-of-mind so that they choose to move forward regardless. Others use comparisons to the inevitable outcomes in life to dilute and/or diminish fear.
– At the end of the day, we must go forward with hope and not backward by fear and division. –Jesse Jackson
– Eighty percent of all choices are based on fear. Most people don’t choose what they want; they choose what they think is safe. –Phil McGraw
– I believe that every single event in life happens in an opportunity to choose love over fear. –Oprah Winfrey
– I have a fear of being boring. –Christian Bale
– I was set free because my greatest fear had been realized, and I still had a daughter who I adored, and I had an old typewriter and a big idea. And so rock bottom became a solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life. — J.K. Rowling
– I’m intimidated by the fear of being average. –Taylor Swift
– In tennis, it is not the opponent you fear, it is the failure itself, knowing how near you were but just out of reach. — Andy Murray
– I’ve always felt that if you back down from a fear, the ghost of that fear never goes away. It diminishes people. –Hugh Jackman
– Perhaps we don’t need these religious concoctions to pillow the fear of death. Just the fact that there is an unknown, and something greater, can bring a feeling of peace. That’s enough for me. –Brad Pitt
– Tell your heart that the fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself. And no heart has ever suffered when it goes in search of its dream. –Paulo Coelho
– The regrets of yesterday and the fear of tomorrow can kill you. –Liza Minnelli
– We’re taught to be ashamed of confusion, anger, fear and sadness, and to me they’re of equal value to happiness, excitement and inspiration. –Alanis Morissette
False Evidence Appearing Real
Many of us have heard that fear is False Evidence Appearing Real. Indeed, some champions of fear have realized that the impending disasters we fear rarely come to pass.
– Bathtub falls and police officers kill more Americans than terrorism, yet we’ve been asked to sacrifice our most sacred rights for fear of falling victim to it. –Edward Snowden
– There are few things more liberating in this life than having your worst fear realized. –Conan O’Brien
– You can’t let fear paralyze you. The worse that can happen is you fail, but guess what: You get up and try again. Feel that pain, get over it, get up, dust yourself off and keep it moving. –Queen Latifah
Finding Humor in Fear
You can laugh or you can cry, right? Laughter is a biological release from discomfort, and fear is certainly uncomfortable.
– Comedy is defiance. It’s a snort of contempt in the face of fear and anxiety. And it’s the laughter that allows hope to creep back on the inhale. –Will Durst
– Laughter kills fear, and without fear there can be no faith. For without fear of the devil there is no need for God. –Sean Connery
Fear is life’s great imaginary limiter—so strong that only through community can it be vanquished. We’d love to see your thoughts and additions to this post.
This article originally appeared on Psychology Today Jun 29, 2016
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