By Abieyuwa Ima-Edomwonyi

Fear is often seen as a sign of weakness. Sometimes you may even hear things like ‘fear is of the Devil’…. But wait, before I go on; let me ask you, what are you scared of? In the course of writing this article, I realized how very broad the topic “fear” is, so I will streamline it and tell you the kind of fear I speak of.

I’m not talking about the morbid fear of dangerous animals, or the fear of heights or water (or any other phobia). The fear referred to here is the one that grips you when you think about your dreams, that almost choke you, the worry about leaving your passion, when you consider quitting your job to start a business of your own, when you think about creating/doing something that nobody has ever done before, when you have a plan so big that the thought of achieving it overwhelms you.

An unknown wise one once said that if your dreams don’t scare you, they are not big enough. Fear makes your dreams real; it directly reflects how badly you want your dreams to come true. The more scared you are, the more you want it and that is the more reason why you should go for it! ”If your dreams don’t scare you, they are not big enough”.

Every great dream is naturally scary. Fear is a good indicator that what you are about to do is something great. “Everything great is on the other side of fear”…. To reach your greatness, fear has to be overcome.

You know those video games that feature a dungeon scene, where there’s a monster standing between you and pot of gold and you have to fight and kill that monster to claim your pot of gold? You should see fears as that monster; you have to face it squarely so that you can get to that pot of gold (dreams). Imagine if that monster was not there, the value you will place on the pot of gold will be little to nothing.
“The fear of your dreams makes them much more valuable”.

You need to keep in mind that “Courage in not the absence of fear, it is the mastery of fear”. Embrace your fear and let it propel you to greatness that you are destined for. The first step to embracing this fear is to decide that the magnitude of the desire to achieve your dream is greater than the magnitude of your fear.

“Courage is not the absence of fear, it is the mastery of fear’ – Mark Twain

So, don’t let your fear stop you from achieving that big dream that keeps you at night. Embrace the fear, be friends with it…. And I promise you, your greatness won’t be far off.