5 Ways To Overcome Intimidation

Intimidation is the dirty little secret that most of us have a very challenging time dealing with let alone admit it to others.

By admitting that we feel less than someone else we look up to means that we must admit our feelings of worthlessness, that we actually feel and believe (albeit at a less than conscious level sometimes) that we cannot actually be as good as the person that we look up to.

Intimidation leads to many behaviors including:

• Feelings of low self-esteem
• Negative self-talk
• Shyness
• Withdrawn and avoidance behaviors
• Anxiety when exposed to the people or situations that intimidate you
• A seemingly uncomfortable, nervousness or false withdrawl making people around you uncomfortable

Our story of intimidation, fear and near paralyzing shyness is documented in Attracting Greatness including a 5-step system for completely changing your life, getting unstuck, confidence building and becoming happier and healthier by tapping into your true inner potential.  Not just a message of hope, but a practical plan that has been used by many to reduce anxiety, overcome fear and become far less intimidated in life. 

Intimidation for most people can be a life-long condition that remains an obstacle to either meeting the person you want to or achieving the end goals you desire.

Here are some typical examples of common intimidation:

• Employees intimidated by bosses – their capabilities and power make you anxious
• Men who desire a particular women can be incapacitated by anxiety due to intimidation, and vice versa women who become anxious around certain men
• Speaking in front of people is a form of situational intimidation that can prevent both career advancement as well as enjoyment
• Authority figures of any kind – this could be teachers, coaches or managers at work…is a very common form of intimidation

So how do you control intimidation so that you can get past these limiting behavioral responses?

1. Changing your thought pattern – Although intimidation may SEEM to appear as if it came on immediately, in most cases you have created the perception that causes intimidation long before through negative self-talk.  Things like “He is much more educated than I am so how am I ever going to impress him” or “She has a higher paying job than I do, she won’t want to go out with me”  are very common and create the foundation for intimidation.  Instead, you must reverse these by giving yourself a reason WHY things will go positively instead of negatively.  In effect, you are guiding your mind through a gradual, but highly effective system of confidence building.

2. Deep Breathing…the initial few minutes of any situation cause the greatest anxiety and fear from intimidation, so to control those responess learn the principles of deep breathing to help control your anxiety and get through the first few minutes while your intimidation lessens

3. Stop Avoidance Behaviors…By avoiding situations where you become intimidated you are simply reinforcing the negative beliefs and continue to take your self confidence down with it.  You may think you are doing the best thing, but in reality you often end up beating yourself up after with more negative self-talk that results in even more intimidation the next time.  Face the music, control your response with deep breathing and before you know it, you will have defeated intimidation. 

4. Take Power Back To Your Side…One of the biggest causes of intimidation is a rather dramatic level of fear you have largely created by perceiving a probable outcome that involves rejection or emberassment – where you are putting the control in the hands of how others will react around you.  Instead, think in terms of YOU having control such that it doesn’t matter the outcome you know you are strong enough to get through whatever happens…it is YOU that holds the cards not those around you. 

5. Meditation Puts Everything In Perspective…I didn’t have a significant belief in meditation until about 8-years ago when I committed to meditation 2X 20-min each day for 1-month and was amazed by the results.  Suddenly everything made more sense, and most of all, my fears and anxieties were dramatically lessened.  Basically what meditation does is allows you to override the negative self-talk, negative imagery and constant elevation of fear you link to future outcomes instead guiding your mind to think objectively about situations, people and events which allows you to put the risk of future failure, setbacks, etc…into proper perspective.  As 90% of our fear is based on situations that never occur, using meditation to adjust our fear creation is a very powerful way to reduce intimidation and be yourself again.