Fearful emotions include everything from low levels of concern and apprehension to intense worry, anxiety, fright, and even terror. Fear serves a purpose, and its message is simple.
Fear is simply the anticipation that something that’s going to happen soon and needs to be prepared for. In the words the Boy Scout motto, “Be prepared.” We need either to prepare to cope with the situation, or to do something to change it. The tragedy is that most people either try to deny their fear, or they wallow in it. Neither of these approaches is respecting the message that fear is trying to deliver, so it will continue to pursue you as it tries to get its message across. You don’t want to surrender to fear and amplify it by starting to think of the worst that could happen, nor do you want to pretend it’s not there.
Review what you were feeling fearful about and evaluate what you must do to prepare yourself mentally. Figure out what actions you need to take to deal with the situation in the best possible way. Sometimes we’ve done all the preparation we could for something; there’s nothing else we can do—but we still sit around in fear. This is the point when you must use the antidote to fear: you must make a decision to have faith, knowing you’ve done all you can to prepare for whatever you’re fearing, and that most fears in life rarely come to fruition.