Every person on the planet has dreams. But only a few actually set out and turn those dreams into reality. Why is that?

They tell themselves it can wait. They tell themselves they need to plan it out better. In short: they put it off. Behind that, in most cases, sits the fear of failure.

Where does that fear come from?

The core of every fear sits in the inherited wisdom of evolution. Not being able to outrun the saber-toothed tiger, not having the body strength to fight off an attacker — thousands of years ago, that was a death sentence.

This primal fear gets transferred onto plenty of modern situations that no longer carry any actual survival risk.

If you notice that fear of failure keeps catching up with you too, the following 4 strategies can help you fight back.

Strategy 1

Picture what happens if you don't do it.

You need to feel fear of the future if you don't start taking action. You have to picture what your future looks like if you don't overcome your fear right now.

Will you regret it if you don't talk to that beautiful woman sitting across from you in the cafe?

Maybe she was the woman of your dreams, and you spend the next five years alone because you didn't say a word?

What does your future look like if you don't act on the business idea that has been on your mind for weeks?

Maybe you have to do a job you don't enjoy, that doesn't develop your talents, where you can't live out your passion…?

You have to connect deep, internal pain with your future if you don't overcome your fear. This method is extremely effective at getting you into action.

Strategy 2

Think about the worst-case scenario.

What's the worst that can happen if you try right now?

Back to the two examples.

What's the worst that can happen if you walk over and talk to that woman?

You get rejected, or she laughs at you. Honestly, not that bad — it builds your confidence and next time it goes better.

What's the worst that can happen if you start the company and put your idea into action? You go bankrupt and you don't have a job. We live in a country with a social safety net — you can't fall lower than that. And that's still more than 90% of the world's population has every month!

In the end, it's usually nowhere near as bad as you first thought.

Strategy 3

Change your attitude toward failing.

Failing is unfortunately the last taboo in our modern "performance society".

Let's look at a few examples from some of the most successful companies in the world:

• Walt Disney was rejected 302 times before someone said yes to financing Disneyland.
• Howard Schultz, the founder of Starbucks, got 244 rejections from banks before he got a single yes.
• In its first year, Coca-Cola sold a grand total of 20 bottles!
• Steve Jobs was pushed out of his own company, returned to Apple a few years later, and turned Apple into a global powerhouse.

As you can see, for successful people failing is nothing unusual. Failing was the precondition for their success.

Every person hits a shipwreck at some point in their life. We can chase a perfect life with no nasty surprises, but a life like that simply isn't on the menu. We have to deal with failing over and over again.

Thomas Edison, the inventor of the light bulb, needed 10,000 attempts before he made it work. When asked how he handled all those failures, Edison answered: There were no failures. I now know more than 10,000 attempts that don't work for building a light bulb.

Either you succeed or you learn — but you never lose. The people who do nothing have already lost; the people who try have shown courage and will pull a lesson from it. Doing nothing is much worse than failing.

Strategy 4

Accept your fear and act anyway.

Accept that the fear is there. Fear is something completely normal. Every person has fear.

Evolution gave us fear to protect us. For early humans, in a constantly life-threatening environment, those fear mechanisms were a real advantage. It was about physical human survival. Going through the same physical reactions while sitting in an office chair at work, however, is pretty miserable. These days that primal fear is mostly unfounded.

So feel the fear and do it anyway!