What is Fear?

In her first article for AccountancyStudents, ACCA qualified Neuro-Linguistics Practitioner, Niki Watkins, outlines a major issue for students – the issue of ‘fear’. This article is particularly relevant to students who are tackling subjects which they are not particularly comfortable with or students who suffer from nervousness in the lead up to an exam.

People have many different fears….fear of death, fear of public speaking and fear of failure to name just a few, however we are born with only two fears; the fear of falling and the fear of loud noises, all other fears in our lives are learnt.

So what is its purpose in our everyday lives, for some people the fear of something can be so strong that it hinders our ability to function on a daily basis, this of course is an extreme case and is commonly known as a phobia.

On the other hand for some people the fear of something can be used as a motivational tool, for example the fear of failing an exam is a great motivational tool and may spur a person to study harder and spend more of their spare time reading articles, books and doing questions, which is a good thing as you do have to know the technical details if you want to pass the exams!

However how long can the motivational aspect of the fear be sustained for? How long will it take for it to cease, once the motivation starts to subside what’s left - that’s right just the fear of failing.

Fearfulness is not the best feeling in the world and it breeds anxiety and if you’ve ever failed an exam (believe me I have!) then you are also aware of how it feels. Put both of these feelings together and you have a multitude of negative thoughts to deal with. Have you ever heard the saying: ‘it takes more muscles and energy to frown than it does to smile’? This is also true for our internal emotions; it takes so much more energy to focus on a negative feeling than it does to focus on a positive.

By changing your focus from being scared of failing the exam to wanting to pass the exam and focusing on the positive aspect of passing, then the motivational shift will change to working towards achieving what you want.

Focus on your goals and aspirations, not only is this more energising and powerful, the motivational aspect will be sustained throughout your studies and the exams. You will be inclined to work towards your goal each day until you have finally and successfully achieved everything you want.

So, consider for a moment how it will feel once you have successfully passed your exams and are fully qualified, imagine receiving the e-mail, logging onto the website and seeing the scores you want, how happy and energised you will feel knowing that all your hard work has paid off, now that is a more motivating feeling isn’t it?

As mentioned people are not born with the fear of failing and it is not a natural process we posses it is a learnt behaviour, as this is the case then we can undo the negative learning and re-programme ourselves to be more confident, calm, energised and eradicate the fear of failing.

By maintaining a positive state of mind and choosing how we want to feel whilst sitting the exam this will transform the experience from a negative one to a positive one and in turn create a successful outcome. In other words, whatever you focus on that is the outcome that you will get. Therefore, by changing your outlook to focus on passing the exam, and by re-programming your mindset to let go of the fear of failing not only will you use less energy on negative feelings you will end up successfully passing the exams.

In summary, always focus on what you want and NOT what you don’t want, set yourself achievable goals to work towards - the motivation to succeed is far more positive than the fear of failing. Fear only holds us back from achieving what we really want, so by maintaining a positive state of mind and letting go of the fear this will empower you to ensure that you successfully achieve all your goals, first time, every time.

Niki Watkins is an ACCA qualified accountant working in Industry and a Neuro-Linguistics Practitioner.