When thinking about fear, it is a vital response to what we see and feel. If we didn’t feel fear we wouldn’t know how to protect ourselves from potential threats. Today, our common fears have to do with the ability to impress others, and how their judgments affect our self-worth. This is especially true with so many people using social media. However, here is something that many may not talk about, and that’s how fear comes out of anxiety.

Anxiety can be a good thing. It can increase attention and help us to enhance our ability to perform. However, many people anxiety can be debilitating and impair one’s ability to function. Knowing how to tell the difference between helpful anxiety and anxiety that can be detrimental to your performance is important because it can be the difference between success and failure. It’s an emotion that sends a message about how you are feeling about the environment around you.

Anytime that you make a change you are causing yourself to grow, but to also be outside of your comfort zone. If you’re someone who is looking to make new friends and would much rather stay home. Leaving the house to go to a few parties or events is necessary and may even put you outside of your comfort zone, to the extent that you are feeling uncomfortable anxiety. Pushing through the anxiety is one way towards making that change. The idea is that if you push yourself through the anxiety you will get past the anxiety and achieve what you are wanting. The problem is that it only works if you do actually achieve the goal. When you push yourself outside the comfort zone and you feel like it is a failure instead of a success, it can reinforce your fear and thinking that being outside the comfort zone is a dangerous place and causes many to be afraid.

We’re all afraid, of what might or might not happen, of what we can’t change, or what we won’t be able to do, or how other people might perceive us. It’s easier to hesitate, to wait for the right moment, to decide we need to think a little longer or do some more research or explore a few more alternatives. Meanwhile, days, weeks, months, and even years pass us by, and so do our dreams.

Don’t let your fears hold you back. Whatever you’ve been planning, whatever you’ve imagined, whatever you’ve dreamed of, get started on it today. If you want to start a business, take the first step. If you want to change careers, take the first step. If you want to expand or enter a new market or offer new products or services, take the first step.  Put your fears aside and get started toward is meant to be in life by doing something. Otherwise, today is gone. Once tomorrow comes, today is lost forever. Today is the most precious asset you own and is the one thing you should truly fear wasting.