"If I really wanted to, I could have...." How often have we heard or even said that?  The sad truth is, more often than not, we did want to, but we didn't do anything because we were too afraid. About 20 years ago the phrase "No Fear" was popular. No Fear is a fallacy because everyone experiences fear. We can stick our head in the sand and deny that we experience fear, or we can admit that we all experience fear and then learn how to manage it. Tony Blauer, founder of Blauer Tactical Systems and the SPEAR System talks about the fact that we need to "Know Fear". If we understand how it works, we can overcome it.

            Coach Blauer says "Fear throttles everything we do. From who we marry to where we live, from how much weight we lift to whether or not we defend ourselves. Managing the fear spike is the real value of our course." What this means is that fear and how we deal with fear impacts every decision we make and every action we take. If we are controlled by fear, we don't ask someone out and therefore we obviously never marry them. If we are afraid to move to a new place, we stay where we are and never experience what the new place has to offer. If we are controlled by fear, we don't ask for the raise we desire or put in for the position we want. If we are controlled by fear, we will miss out on so much in life. And yes, managing fear determines if we defend ourselves. If we are frozen with fear, our 20 years of martial arts training is worthless because you never use it!

            Coach Blauer says that "the mind navigates the body". Our mind takes our body to whatever place it goes. The fight is going on in our heads before it ever takes place in the real world. It's why a man with a flesh wound to the arm who thinks he is dying dies and another man who is shot ten times but is determined he will see his wife and children again no matter what lives, defying all odds. What goes on in our mind is more real to us than what is actually true. If we see ourselves losing a fight in our mind, we lose it in real life as well.

            There is a Cycle of Behavior™ that our minds go through in every situation and understanding it can allow us to navigate it and take control of it. Understanding that cycle will allow us to deal with our fear and get challenged instead of just being threatened. Every situation starts a mental cycle driven by things we visualize, expect, believe, etcetera. It happens in milliseconds, usually automatically unless we have learned to reroute our thoughts. This involves fear management.

            We have several acronyms for fear: False Evidence Appearing Real, False Expectations Appearing Real and Failure Expected, Action Required. All these involve things that we must deal with or they will control us. False Evidence Appearing Real could be seeing someone with a crooked nose, cauliflower ears, tattoos and a Tap Out shirt and thinking that they are a great fighter that we can't beat before they ever do anything. This puts us in fear and believing we can't possibly win a fight before it ever happens, and the reality may be that he has lost every fight he has ever been in which is why his nose is crooked and he has cauliflower ears. The truth is he is a terrible fighter and we could easily beat him but because we believe he is a great fighter who we can't beat, we will lose. If we recognize that we are assuming a negative outcome, we can begin to attack these incorrect beliefs and change what we are expecting. As we take control of our thoughts and mental pictures, we gain control of our fear and the situation.

            It could be the false expectation that our boss will say no when we ask for a raise. We go in expecting rejection and it influences how we present ourselves and our case for a raise, usually dooming us to getting our request denied. Or even worse, we don't even ask for the raise.

            So fear throttles everything in life. That's why we teach the Cycle of Behavior™ as part of our Be Your Own Bodyguard™ classes. We can deny that we have fear and allow it to limit everything in our lives or we can "Know Fear" and control it instead of it controlling us. The choice is yours.