HOW TO USE "BEUTIFUL MIND"

Here’s the scariest fact about fear and what you can do about it.Avoid fear and it grows. Dance around fear and it always finds a way to get invited to the next party. Walk on the other side of the street and you will meet it at the next corner.In fact, if you go to the ends of the earth, you will find it at whichever end you happen to land.Fear doesn’t go away on its own. It only gets bigger and continues to limit your life with more slyness and less warning.I know that doesn’t sound inspiring and uplifting. Well, I didn’t invent fear. I’m just telling you how it works. And I can also tell you what to do about it and expend the least amount of calories possible.Acknowledge fear and ignore it.I got this idea while watching “A Beautiful Mind,” the 2001 Best Picture winner starring Russell Crowe. It’s the story of Nobel Prize winning mathematician John Nash and his battle with schizophrenia.Three characters in the movie (an old roommate, a niece, and a Department of Defense agent) are hallucinations that Nash’s mind generates. By the end of the film, Nash acknowledges their presence, yet manages to ignore them.Although the film takes certain liberties with Nash’s biography and the treatment of schizophrenia, it does suggest a way to deal with fear. Acknowledge it and ignore it.This works wonders for a fear like the fear of failure, public speaking, or somehow appearing foolish. In these cases, you are not in physical danger. However, you can bang up your self-esteem and put your success potential in intensive care.

And that’s what this technique helps you avoid.Here’s how to do this.Take a deep breath. Elevate your gaze as if looking at a point just above a distant horizon.Call to mind a fear that causes you to get nervous, feel tension, or sense uneasiness. Let your mind give this fear an imaginary physical form.
Like Nash in the movie, make a person out it.Ask yourself “What would this person have me do?” The answer isn’t pretty. This imaginary person would have you hesitate, procrastinate, or otherwise set yourself up for failure. If you do as this person suggests, you will prepare endlessly, seek countless other opinions, find another more exciting opportunity, or otherwise talk yourself out of action.So here’s the technique. Acknowledge this imaginary person and ignore him or her. How simple could it be?I’ve observed that some even give a brief physical nod of acknowledgement to this imaginary image of fear and then get into motion.And that’s the real key. Get in motion as soon as you acknowledge the imaginary figure. Hesitate, feel like “this is stupid,” or argue with it and the effectiveness of the technique drops off rapidly.That’s essentially what Nash does at the end of the movie. The hallucinations never leave. However, he has learned to ignore them and go about his life.Do the same with your fear.After a while, you will barely be able to recall what it looked like. You will be so used to ignoring this fear that you will forget it was there in the first place.