How To Overcome Fear – 3 Lessons From Skydiving

Jumping out of an airplane was probably one of the most stressful moments of my life. But apparently not for my jumping partner, Wokka, which really enjoyed myself.

At the beginning of this month I decided to jump out of an airplane, 3.000 feet above ground level. The reason why I did this is s imple. All our lives we’re trying to seek comfort. But what we all forget is that in pain is where growth occurs.

Now you might not jump out of a plane tomorrow, but if we want to get the most out of our lives we inevitably will have to deal with stress. Be it by giving a presentation, trying a new exercise in the gym or asking our crush out for a date.

Today I want to tell you three secrets to deal with psychological tension, that I used on my skydiving adventure.

You’ve heard me talking about feeling fine and being excited. Yet is this truly the case? The reality is that I barely slept the last two days, because I was as nervous as you can be. The jump got cancelled the day before, we waited for hours outside, with bad weather conditions. At this day it was 7 am in the morning, I felt drained. I wanted to go home.

But in stressful situations there is absolutely no benefit to be gained in feeling sorry for ourselves. If I’ve told Wokka how I truly felt, it would’ve only made him nervous, made me feel worse and probably made the jump an horrible experience. Which it wasn’t. In fact the words that you speak heavily influence your state of mind.

When we face stress, our self talk and what we say publicly can heavily influence the outcome of the situation. Nervousness and exciteness are for the most part the same emotionial reaction. Yet if we frame our feelings as nervous, we seem helpless. If we frame them as excitement, we feel, well excited. In stressful situation and in life in general, choose your words wisely and make sure they are positive.

The mind influences the body and the body influences the mind. If you’re going through pain, pay close attention to your actions.

You see me taking up space – expanding my posture, making positive gestures, moving slowly and having a smile on my face.

These are all behaviours people show when they’re calm, cool and collected. And these behaviours will influence your state of being, if you act insecure, you’ll be insecure. If you act calm, you soon will be.

Try this the next time you’ve did something embarrassing. Instead of closing off, hiding your face and doing everything in a rush, expand your body, take up space, smile and move extremely slowly.

You will realize that most people surrounding you will act way differently, and you will feel calm in no time. The mind influences the body and the body influences the mind.

In the beginning of this video I told you that I jumped out of an airplane 3.000 feet above the ground.

But what I didn’t tell you that the jump happened 16.000kilometers away from home. In a short 2 weeks off work, I decided to travel most of the east-coast of Australia. A distant continent where I’ve never been and knew nothing about. In Byron Bay, which is a small surfer spot right here, I decided to skydive on a whim. In the gym, in our career and even when beating fear, it’s all about momentum.

Jumping out of an airplane is easier if you travelled to a distant place on your own, 5 days prior. Which means we should all make it a habit to face fear on a regular basis. This will not only expand our comfort zone, it will also enable us to face bigger and bigger fears over time. Presenting us with a completely new life, making us a completely different person.

Be it with a guy like Wokka on our back or not, we all should face stress on a regular basis. We should stop running awa y from discomfort.

Pain will make us grow into the person we want to be, and need to be. We can make the distressing situation easier, by paying attention to how we speak, watching our body language closely and dealing with fear on a daily.

This is part of what makes us develop as humans and key to fulfill our true potential.