At first glance at the title, I'm willing to bet that you thought I was talking about puberty or something. Though, yes, puberty really is something that we shouldn't be ashamed of (as it happens to everyone), I'm referring to something even bigger, something that's somehow more...affective since it's mostly part of the emotional and mental aspects of our being.

I'm talking about fear.

If someone ever tells you that they aren't afraid of anything, news flash! They're lying. Everyone is afraid of something whether they are actual things like spiders or something weird born out of their imaginations. Fear, however, of these things is totally minor when compared to fearing fear itself.

Does that sound too deep? Don't worry, it gets simpler.

According to John Maxwell, fear is the very first battle anyone ever faces before marching forward towards a fight to the death or simply before standing up to a bully. Indeed, this is dead on true. In reality, we aren't afraid of, for example, death, but we are afraid of the fear that comes with dying process.

So how can we make all the fearing stuff stop? Easy. Overcome it.

The following steps are what Maxwell said (in his brilliant blog found here) we need to do in order to defeat the small but powerful force of fear in our heads.

1. Try and find out what's causing the fear. - When you realize and accept that most of the fear you have is basically born out of nothing, you can start getting rid of it.

2. Admit your fears - Again, it's nothing to be ashamed of. Just because you're scared of something doesn't mean that you're not courageous. Besides, by accepting your phobias, you can see which ones are totally irrational and baseless.

3. Accept life as it is - If you're afraid of natural occurrences that are supposed to happen and are going to happen like death, then it's time to move on. There's nothing you can do about it. Death is a part of our human nature. Once you have planted and accepted that into your brain, you can start noticing the things that you can do something about.

4. Fear is the price of progress - As long as we'll keep stretching ourselves to improve and to make progress, fear will tag along for the ride. How? Well, no one ever ends up successful by playing things safe. Risks have to be taken in order to make it worthwhile in the end, but with those risks come fear that the gamble wouldn't work and that you'd fail.

5. WANT to overcome the fear - Hey, determination can make a lot of things happen. By really and truly wanting to overcome our fears (and of course taking action), we can. I know it sounds cliche, but it's true that "Anything is possible if you just believe."

6. Get your attention on what you can actually change - By doing step number 3, we will be able to get a hold on ourselves and focus on what we can control, not to moan and weep over something inevitable. By doing all that we can do to make things better, overcoming fears would be a lot easier.

7. Today is the day - You can't do anything about the yesterday, so stop mulling over that. Tomorrow won't happen till this day ends, so it's useless to start worrying about it right now. That leaves us with today. Now. The present. The time when we can do something or change something. Regretting the past wont do anything and worrying about the future would just make things worse. Focus on what's in front of you in the present.

8. Overcome what you can - Not all of life's fears are gargantuan and intimidating. Some are actually pretty small and easily fixed. When we can, it's best to overcome these mini-fears to earn us some courage and some confidence. With these two in our arsenal, it would be a lot easier to topple down the bigger ones.

9. Do it NOW! - Why wait until tomorrow when you can do it now? The world today is moving in a blurry speed. Time can move without us even noticing it. Though procrastinating seems like a fairly tempting idea, it's best to do it at present when you still can. If you won't, then that would just be another regret.