How to Overcome Fear: 7 Brain-Changing Steps, From an NLP Coach and Hypnotist

I’m sorry, but I just googled the other blogs’ information on how to overcome fear, and I gotta say, the generic, cliché advice there is not going to make a difference for someone who is genuinely being held back in life due to fear.

If you want to become a courageous lion and be able to go after your dreams – to have wild, incredible experiences that create memories and change the trajectory of your life, you need neuroscience-backed, brain-changing strategies that actually transform fear into courage.

So here I am, writing this guide on how to actually change your brain for how to get rid of fear and go out and fully LIVE your life.

An NLP Coach & Hypnotist’s 7 Best Tips for Overcoming Fear

FYI: I wrote a book full of these processes that you can download for FREE. If you want to skip the overview and get right into the real gold, just grab my free book below.

FREE Instant PDF download, delivered to your email

“Why Do I Fear So Much?”

What you fear the most is what your subconscious mind anticipates and fantasizes. Your conscious mind is extremely limited in terms of what’s best for you, or the best ways to reach your goals and desires. The conscious mind only takes up about 5% of your brain power. The subconscious (or unconscious) mind operates the remaining 95%.

So when you have a desire…

You want to leave everything to go travel or move to a new country,
You want to quit your job to build your dream business,
Post consistently online to grow your business or content creator dream,
Sell your house and build a permaculture farm offgrid,
Use your voice publicly for activism or sharing your opinions,
Ask beautiful women out on dates,
Host meetups, community events, open mics or awesome dinner parties that expand your inspiring friend circle…

You have to up-level your mind and emotional capacity to do this next bigger thing you want to achieve. Which means that when this new idea is presented to your conscious mind, it feels fear. Simply because this thing is unknown. Out of your comfort zone.

But the subconscious mind (where your habits, beliefs and societal conditioning is stored), knows that this is the gateway to getting where you want to go.

Sometimes the worst-case scenario you’re imagining is totally crazy and extremely unlikely to happen. (This goes for fear of failure too.)

Sometimes it does happen. But even when it does, it’s because you need to learn the lesson it presents (and gain the strength) to increase your capacity to be capable of having the next level of success and happiness.

OR: the worst-case scenario happens, simply because it needs to take you off your current life path and put you onto another one – the one that leads and positions you to the right circumstances for your desire to be able to happen.

For example:

When I decided to drive my 21-year-old car from Serbia to Vietnam, and had to leave it behind in Afghanistan to continue traveling by land with my cat the rest of the way, it turned out to be the best thing that could’ve happened, because of all the interesting people I met and experiences I had – that I wouldn’t have been able to experience if I’d been safely inside the walls of my own vehicle.

If you want to hear this whole wild story, check out my memoir I wrote about the trip: Following the Open Road.

Your conscious mind can’t possibly know what’s in store for your future, but your subconscious mind knows a lot better. As a hypnotist, it’s my job to help you access the state of mind that helps you get in touch with your subconscious, so you can access its guidance in any situation.

Think of the subconscious as your adventurous friend, who takes you by the hand and pulls you toward a new adventure, saying, “Come on! You can do it! This will be fun.”

When you follow it, you get to go have a great experience. Or you can choose to stay behind and stay stuck in whatever situation you’re in that you don’t like.

So, if you’ve decided you’re ready to follow the desire instead of the fear, I’ll give you the steps to be able to do it.

1. You have to decide that your desire is a NECESSITY

"You're so fearless," a lot of people tell me because of my adventures I share on Instagram. But I definitely had fears before I piled my stuff in the car and drove across Asia.

I was afraid of leaving all my friends I’d just spent 4 years investing in. And getting rid of all my plants.
My car is an old beater from 2006; I was afraid of breaking down in the middle of nowhere and not being able to find anyone to help me.
I live solely on income I gain from clients in my online business. I was afraid my business would fail and I’d run out of money and get stranded.

But I really needed to leave Serbia. Things weren’t bad there, not by a long shot! I had a pretty damn good life, by most standards. I was just unhappy.

And as cheesy as it sounds, I have a zero-tolerance policy for being unhappy with my life. I’ve worked too hard, taken too many risks, broken up with too many people I loved or liked…to let myself stay somewhere I’m not happy.

I live my life for myself, not for obligations, not for societal pressure.

Ultimately, nothing wins over my desires. And as they say, necessity is the mother of doing what you need to do to make sure you get what you need.

So the first step to overcoming fears is to DECIDE that you will choose what you want over what you fear, it’s just a matter of how you’ll do it.

2. Identify the root emotions that cause your fears.

There are always deeply rooted emotions that bring our fears to the surface. Uncover the web of mycelium under the ground, and you’ll find where the mushroom comes from.

Oregon (where I’m from) is home to the world’s largest living organism: The Humongous Fungus. People have tried to for YEARS to dig it up. But ultimately, they found it spans the length of 3.5 square miles.

It’s actually quite destructive: uprooting years-old trees, and killing lots of other things in the ecosystem in its wake.

Photo: U.S. Forest Service (Craig L. Schmitt, Michael L. Tatum), public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

When you let those underlying emotions grow, they keep you from all the incredible things you’re meant to do and experience in this life.

3. Get to the bottom of your fears by playing the “So what?” game:

Every fear has another level.

So, if I’m afraid of failing at business and losing all my money… “So what?”

Well, then I’d be stuck in some country and not have a way to leave.

…“So what?”

It would be repeating exactly what happened 4 years ago when I first arrived in Serbia!

…“So what?”

That would mean I’d failed twice, after 4 years of working so hard to build something up.

…“So what?”

I’d be completely ashamed of myself for letting myself get back to that place of failure again.

Ahhhh there it is.

It’s not really a fear of no money. It’s a fear of not being able to forgive myself for failing. That’s the fungus underneath the surface.

4. Overcome the root of the fear by playing the “And what then?” game:

There’s a basic hypnosis technique that asks you to:

Find a spot, any spot, on the wall ahead of you to focus your vision on.
As you concentrate on that spot, you then expand your peripheral vision to see what’s on the sides of you, while still focusing on your Spot On the Wall.
Then you expand your vision even farther, to see what’s behind you (while still focusing on your Spot).
You can even expand to see what’s happening in your whole building, or even your whole city.

This exercise allows you to let go of the logical part of your mind and surrender to the subconscious. It puts you into a “suggestive state,” which means you’re more receptive to hear and accept new ideas and opinions.

What happens when we’re afraid is this:

You get fixated on the one thought in front of you, and aren’t able to see other things in your peripheral vision that might also be true.

I may know it’s perfectly illogical to think I would get stuck somewhere because I’ve been making a consistent, good income for several years now.

But tell that to my fear when I’m about to leave everything I know behind and jump into the unknown.

This is where you have to expand the vision and allow yourself to see the other sides of the potentially scary situation.

I’m afraid of running out of money. So what would I do if that happened?

Well, I’d hunker down, do some good ol’ fashioned marketing, send some emails to my list, and keep doing so until I rounded up clients who would pay me some money!

But what if I lose my skill and am not able to get any clients?

Well, I’d reach out to people with other skills I know how to do. I can always teach English, or offer VA or Social Media Management services. Either way, I’d find something.

What about the feeling bad about myself for failing part?

Well, I’d do the inner work I needed to do to give myself grace and compassion so I could move past it. At this point, I’ve had a LOT of practice with that, so I know I’d be able to.

(If you don’t know how, or you know how but struggle in the execution, I can help you too.)

But if I tried and wasn’t able to overcome the issue, I’d book a session with one of my fellow coaches and they’d help me solve it.

So there we have it. You get to the point where you can’t make any more arguments. And you can’t come up with anymore reasons why you shouldn’t do it. Because you’ve just gotten to the root of the fear, and pulled every last bit up.

5. Get lost in the idea, not the execution.

Spend more time and energy thinking about your idea, and picturing yourself doing it, instead of planning every detail (and worrying about it).

Granted, this is different for different folks, because some people really are just innate planners.

But there are some things that just can’t be researched or planned.

When I found out I would have to leave my car in Afghanistan because of bureaucracy issues, I spent a decent amount of time in a Pakistan Travel Whatsapp group, trying to ask people about their experience crossing the Afghanistan/Pakistan border by foot.

The problem was, they changed their regulations with the visa just weeks before I was planning on going across. And because of those changes, no travelers were even trying to cross.

There was so much back-and-forth messaging. People were not sure if their visas they’d already gotten before the legal change would work.

Someone planned to cross, but then his buddies got sick and he didn’t want to take the risk alone.

In short, no one knew what the deal was.

That’s why I and a friend who’d met up with me in Kabul decided to just drive down to the border and see for ourselves.

Photo by Orest Zub

It was very exciting to find out we were not only able to cross, but welcomed with open arms by all the guards (in large part due to my cat Cleo being so damn cute).

It was also a reminder that spending too much time asking other people about their experiences and trying to get all the answers can just be a waste of time and energy.

There are some paths you have to pave first.

6. Many people will tell you won’t be able to do it.

This will majorly fuck with you. People constantly try to discourage you out of spite or jealousy or whatever, and that may not phase you…

…But it’s the people you really see as credible resources that will make you rethink your idea. During this trip, I asked many locals for information about travel and all kinds of things. And I heard, “You won’t be able to do that,” or, “It’s not possible,” more times than I care to count.

“You won’t be able to hike that trail.”

“That’s not safe to do alone.”

“You won’t get along with those people.”

“That’s not allowed.”

97% of the time, they were wrong.

Whether you want to do some kind of travel, or an outdoor adventure, or whatever it may be, you will always have to remind yourself that people will only be able to advise you according to their own experience.

And many people don’t think outside of the box, or venture past what’s already known. So if you’re doing something exceptionally different, you’ll get a lot of this.

7. Remember what you’ve already accomplished.

Use your own past courageous moments as evidence that you can do it.

I learned how to ride a motorbike when I was in Laos.

Then, a couple weeks later, a friend of mine visited me in Vietnam, and we wanted to ride a few hours through the famous Hai Van mountain pass, to visit another city. My friend is a tall 6’3, and everyone always says it’s much harder to ride a scooter with someone else on the back - because of balance and weight distribution and all that.

I kept hearing stories about people who got into wrecks because of having someone on the bike, so I had that bit of trepidation about carrying my friend all the way through this route.

But then I remembered that I cycled for 7 days through Thailand on a regular bicycle, with a big, heavy trailer on the back. I was carrying more than 200 pounds on that bike, if you count me, my cat, and all the stuff I was hauling. I remembered it being a bit wobbly, but I was able to do it without any issues.

So rather than using other people’s parameters of whether or not the task would be too difficult, I used my own instead.

And we made the journey successfully, without any issues. It even rained the whole time…and we were still fine.

How to Overcome Fear (Book)

These 7 steps were taken straight from chapter 3 of my book: Overcome Fear to Do Courageous, Outrageous Things.

You can get all 9 chapters for FREE – I give tons of practical strategies like these for living a full, adventurous life (especially if you love to travel and meet people).

FREE Instant PDF download, delivered to your email

Inside, you’ll find:

Chapter 1: Your Current Life Is Over

When you're ready for a total reset and a fresh start.

How to get started with a big change when you're completely overwhelmed
How to prep your subconscious mind for change (get it onboard and change will be easy)

Chapter 2: What If You Don't Know What You Want?

When you know it's time for the next big thing but aren't sure what it is yet.

How to pave your own path when no one else has done (or documented) what you want to do yet
Dealing with the fear of, "What if I put in all this work and effort and then I don't actually like the thing I've done it all for?"

Chapter 3: Getting Started Without Perfectionism

A lesson I learned from a hitchhiker in Georgia: this inspiring way of life will shift you out of overthinking like it did for me
A hypnosis trance to embody the carefree version of yourself

Chapter 4: Seven Steps to Overcome Doubt & Take Action

You don't have to go from 0 to 100. Our brains experience many micro decisions in between the beginning and the end of a creative act. I walk you through each micro step, so you have an actual formula for changing your brain to take action. (One thing at a time.)

Chapter 5: What to Do When Things Go Wrong (Part 1)

How I laugh off most of life's disasters
How overstaying my visa in Vietnam and having to leave my cat behind for an emergency trip to Malaysia was really not a big deal, and turned into something great. Again, step by step, how to approach a big, overwhelming situation and break it into bite-sized pieces for neuroplasticity and adaptability.

Chapter 6: What to Do When Things Go Wrong (Part 2)

How I turn any shitty situation into pleasure
When "envisioning the goal" just isn't a good enough motivation for really enduring tough challenges, I have an approach that's more satisfying.

Chapter 7: When to Give Up and When to Keep Going

Making big decisions feel lighter
What my failed attempt to walk across Laos taught me about being ok with giving up, when it's the right thing to do

Chapter 8: How to Stay Present While Working Towards a Goal

Finding gratification in the delay
How to keep enjoying it all when you're doing everything you can to reach a goal, but still haven't gotten there yet (aka, dealing with the boring in-between phases)
Hypnosis techniques for viewing your life from a different perspective, and genuinely being able to romanticize exactly where you are right now

Chapter 9: Why You Need to Get Rid of Everything and Go Travel!

My case for ridding yourself of all your possessions. If your energy is tied up in a million different directions, keeping you from focusing on what you really love, this last chapter will help you get free.

Hypnosis to Overcome Fear

When I take you into a hypnosis trance, it’s like doing a meditation, only stronger. You get more relaxed, you let go of the conscious mind to suspend your sense of reality (like watching a movie). Then, you go on a journey to cement the change into your subconscious, so it rewires for the change you want to make.

How I Overcome Fear With Hypnosis

When I hypnotized myself to deal with fear, I traveled into a forest with a clearing in the middle of the trees. There, in the middle, was a giant rock. A ram was standing on top of it.

I started talking to the ram (my sign is Aries, by the way), and it told me it would keep me safe.

Then, I started floating up. I left the earth and kept floating up higher and higher, until I was in the dark night sky among the stars. I was terrified. Physically, my breathing was fast and intense, and I was thinking, “Where the fuck am I going?”

Then I remembered the ram was still down below. I saw it like a tiny dot. It comforted me. I immediately stopped breathing so hard and calmed down. I continued floating in this unknown space, and enjoyed myself there. I was happy.

This was a deeply transformational moment in my life. Before that, I spent so much time in fear of the unknown.

What if I run out of money?

What if I get rejected?

What if I feel embarrassed or look stupid?

But none of that mattered, as long as I knew I was safe.

I could tell you all day long that you don’t need to fear the unknown. That it’s a place of excitement and expansiveness. But you can hear it with your conscious mind and nod your head and agree…but still not be able to do the courageous action.

When you experience something like this so viscerally in a subconscious state, however, it finally clicks.

It changes everything.

Now, I have this moment as an anchor to go back to, anytime I’m about to step into a new level in life or business. I remember that moment of profound safety, looking down at the ram, knowing that I am safe. And I’m able to go and do the thing I need to do to get the next thing in life I want.

So if you’re ready to have a profound moment of impact you can come back to for the rest of your life,

To become unstoppable and limitless,
To be able to take action on anything you need to do to get what you want in life,

Book a session with me right here and I’ll take you through the journey.

About Me

I'm Mia Kercher, and I'm a Hypnotist & Coach of the Unconscious Mind

I got into the world of personal development several years ago when I hit rock bottom in my life. My relationship was a disaster, and it felt like I'd tried everything you could possibly try to have a great life (travel, adventure, romance, education, art...everything) but I STILL wasn't happy.

Regular therapy for 2 years helped me, but I'd hit a wall. Things weren't really progressing, and I still didn't have a grasp on my purpose or really finding joy out of life.

Then I discovered coaching, hypnosis, and magic. These gave me tools to ACTUALLY change the things I didn't like in my life. They gave me connection to Life, to something bigger than me, and got me passionate again.

I'd love to help you find this too.

BOOK A CHAT WITH ME HERE

How to Overcome Fear: 7 Brain-Changing Steps, From an NLP Coach and Hypnotist

I’m sorry, but I just googled the other blogs’ information on how to overcome fear, and I gotta say, the generic, cliché advice there is not going to make a difference for someone who is genuinely being held back in life due to fear.

If you want to become a courageous lion and be able to go after your dreams – to have wild, incredible experiences that create memories and change the trajectory of your life, you need neuroscience-backed, brain-changing strategies that actually transform fear into courage.

So here I am, writing this guide on how to actually change your brain for how to get rid of fear and go out and fully LIVE your life.

An NLP Coach & Hypnotist’s 7 Best Tips for Overcoming Fear

FYI: I wrote a book full of these processes that you can download for FREE. If you want to skip the overview and get right into the real gold, just grab my free book below.

“Why Do I Fear So Much?”

So when you have a desire…

You want to leave everything to go travel or move to a new country,

You want to quit your job to build your dream business,

Post consistently online to grow your business or content creator dream,

Sell your house and build a permaculture farm offgrid,

Use your voice publicly for activism or sharing your opinions,

Ask beautiful women out on dates,

Host meetups, community events, open mics or awesome dinner parties that expand your inspiring friend circle…

You have to up-level your mind and emotional capacity to do this next bigger thing you want to achieve. Which means that when this new idea is presented to your conscious mind, it feels fear. Simply because this thing is unknown. Out of your comfort zone.

But the subconscious mind (where your habits, beliefs and societal conditioning is stored), knows that this is the gateway to getting where you want to go.

Sometimes the worst-case scenario you’re imagining is totally crazy and extremely unlikely to happen. (This goes for fear of failure too.)

Sometimes it does happen. But even when it does, it’s because you need to learn the lesson it presents (and gain the strength) to increase your capacity to be capable of having the next level of success and happiness.

OR: the worst-case scenario happens, simply because it needs to take you off your current life path and put you onto another one – the one that leads and positions you to the right circumstances for your desire to be able to happen.

For example:

If you want to hear this whole wild story, check out my memoir I wrote about the trip: Following the Open Road.

Your conscious mind can’t possibly know what’s in store for your future, but your subconscious mind knows a lot better. As a hypnotist, it’s my job to help you access the state of mind that helps you get in touch with your subconscious, so you can access its guidance in any situation.

Think of the subconscious as your adventurous friend, who takes you by the hand and pulls you toward a new adventure, saying, “Come on! You can do it! This will be fun.”

When you follow it, you get to go have a great experience. Or you can choose to stay behind and stay stuck in whatever situation you’re in that you don’t like.

So, if you’ve decided you’re ready to follow the desire instead of the fear, I’ll give you the steps to be able to do it.

1. You have to decide that your desire is a NECESSITY

"You're so fearless," a lot of people tell me because of my adventures I share on Instagram. But I definitely had fears before I piled my stuff in the car and drove across Asia.

I was afraid of leaving all my friends I’d just spent 4 years investing in. And getting rid of all my plants.

My car is an old beater from 2006; I was afraid of breaking down in the middle of nowhere and not being able to find anyone to help me.

I live solely on income I gain from clients in my online business. I was afraid my business would fail and I’d run out of money and get stranded.

But I really needed to leave Serbia. Things weren’t bad there, not by a long shot! I had a pretty damn good life, by most standards. I was just unhappy.

And as cheesy as it sounds, I have a zero-tolerance policy for being unhappy with my life. I’ve worked too hard, taken too many risks, broken up with too many people I loved or liked…to let myself stay somewhere I’m not happy.

I live my life for myself, not for obligations, not for societal pressure.

Ultimately, nothing wins over my desires. And as they say, necessity is the mother of doing what you need to do to make sure you get what you need.

So the first step to overcoming fears is to DECIDE that you will choose what you want over what you fear, it’s just a matter of how you’ll do it.

2. Identify the root emotions that cause your fears.

There are always deeply rooted emotions that bring our fears to the surface. Uncover the web of mycelium under the ground, and you’ll find where the mushroom comes from.

Oregon (where I’m from) is home to the world’s largest living organism: The Humongous Fungus. People have tried to for YEARS to dig it up. But ultimately, they found it spans the length of 3.5 square miles.

It’s actually quite destructive: uprooting years-old trees, and killing lots of other things in the ecosystem in its wake.

When you let those underlying emotions grow, they keep you from all the incredible things you’re meant to do and experience in this life.

3. Get to the bottom of your fears by playing the “So what?” game:

Every fear has another level.

So, if I’m afraid of failing at business and losing all my money… “So what?”

Well, then I’d be stuck in some country and not have a way to leave.

…“So what?”

It would be repeating exactly what happened 4 years ago when I first arrived in Serbia!

…“So what?”

That would mean I’d failed twice, after 4 years of working so hard to build something up.

…“So what?”

I’d be completely ashamed of myself for letting myself get back to that place of failure again.

Ahhhh there it is.

It’s not really a fear of no money. It’s a fear of not being able to forgive myself for failing. That’s the fungus underneath the surface.

4. Overcome the root of the fear by playing the “And what then?” game:

There’s a basic hypnosis technique that asks you to:

Find a spot, any spot, on the wall ahead of you to focus your vision on.

As you concentrate on that spot, you then expand your peripheral vision to see what’s on the sides of you, while still focusing on your Spot On the Wall.

Then you expand your vision even farther, to see what’s behind you (while still focusing on your Spot).

You can even expand to see what’s happening in your whole building, or even your whole city.

This exercise allows you to let go of the logical part of your mind and surrender to the subconscious. It puts you into a “suggestive state,” which means you’re more receptive to hear and accept new ideas and opinions.

What happens when we’re afraid is this:

You get fixated on the one thought in front of you, and aren’t able to see other things in your peripheral vision that might also be true.

I may know it’s perfectly illogical to think I would get stuck somewhere because I’ve been making a consistent, good income for several years now.

But tell that to my fear when I’m about to leave everything I know behind and jump into the unknown.

This is where you have to expand the vision and allow yourself to see the other sides of the potentially scary situation.

I’m afraid of running out of money. So what would I do if that happened?

Well, I’d hunker down, do some good ol’ fashioned marketing, send some emails to my list, and keep doing so until I rounded up clients who would pay me some money!

But what if I lose my skill and am not able to get any clients?

Well, I’d reach out to people with other skills I know how to do. I can always teach English, or offer VA or Social Media Management services. Either way, I’d find something.

What about the feeling bad about myself for failing part?

Well, I’d do the inner work I needed to do to give myself grace and compassion so I could move past it. At this point, I’ve had a LOT of practice with that, so I know I’d be able to.

(If you don’t know how, or you know how but struggle in the execution, I can help you too.)

But if I tried and wasn’t able to overcome the issue, I’d book a session with one of my fellow coaches and they’d help me solve it.

So there we have it. You get to the point where you can’t make any more arguments. And you can’t come up with anymore reasons why you shouldn’t do it. Because you’ve just gotten to the root of the fear, and pulled every last bit up.

5. Get lost in the idea, not the execution.

Spend more time and energy thinking about your idea, and picturing yourself doing it, instead of planning every detail (and worrying about it).

Granted, this is different for different folks, because some people really are just innate planners.

But there are some things that just can’t be researched or planned.

When I found out I would have to leave my car in Afghanistan because of bureaucracy issues, I spent a decent amount of time in a Pakistan Travel Whatsapp group, trying to ask people about their experience crossing the Afghanistan/Pakistan border by foot.

The problem was, they changed their regulations with the visa just weeks before I was planning on going across. And because of those changes, no travelers were even trying to cross.