The First Two Mindset Shifts To Overcome Your Phobia
If you’ve lived with a phobia for years, you know how exhausting it can be to organize your life around fear. Whether it’s flying, needles, driving, or something else entirely, your world can slowly shrink as avoidance becomes your default coping strategy. The good news is that fear isn’t permanent—it can be unlearned and released with the right approach.
In my book Phobia Freedom: At-Home Techniques to Reduce Your Anxiety, I explain how the process of overcoming fear starts not with exposure or willpower, but with a shift in mindset. Before any technique can truly work, two powerful internal changes need to happen:
1️⃣ Believing it’s possible to change, and
2️⃣ Recognizing that the real problem is fear itself—not the object of fear.
1. Believing It’s Possible
The first milestone on the path to freedom is believing that healing is possible.
Many people with phobias assume they’ll have to live with their fear forever. Maybe they’ve tried therapy or self-help methods and decided they’re “just too anxious.” Or maybe they’ve never tried at all, convinced that nothing could truly help.
But the truth is, your brain is capable of change at any age. The same neural pathways that learned fear can also learn calm.
When you shift from “I’ll always be this way” to “Maybe I can get better,” everything opens up.
Belief doesn’t mean pretending the fear isn’t real—it means allowing for the possibility that it can change. That small shift creates curiosity, hope, and the willingness to try again, even if previous attempts didn’t work. Stay open. Stay persistent. That’s how progress begins.
2. Turning the Focus Inward
The second mindset shift is realizing that the problem isn’t what’s out there—it’s what’s happening in here.
For years, my attention was fixed on the external trigger (in my case, vomit). I thought if I could just avoid it or control my environment, I’d finally feel safe. But the world doesn’t work that way. We can’t control everything outside of us—and trying to only makes the fear grow stronger.
True freedom comes when you stop trying to eliminate the trigger and start soothing the internal fear response. The goal isn’t to get rid of every spider, airplane, or elevator—it’s to teach your mind and body that you’re safe, even when those things exist.
You can’t erase every potential fear from the world, but you can reduce the fear within yourself.
Putting It All Together
Believing in the possibility of change and turning your focus inward are the first two mindset shifts that make everything else work. Once you’ve made these internal adjustments, you’re ready to explore tools like EFT tapping, Havening, hypnosis, or guided imagery—and you’ll find that they start to make a real difference.
Freedom begins the moment you stop asking, “How do I avoid this?” and start asking, “How can I release the fear within me?”