Are you sick and tired of being afraid all the time?

I was. There was a time in my life when I had trouble getting out of bed. Thinking of that time in my life, I realize that was not a life at all. In fact, being overwhelmed , panicked, and stuck in suffering is not something I’d wish on my worst enemy. I was exhausted and beaten down. I felt helpless and vulnerable. I was anxious about dying or losing someone that I loved. I worried about living through war, being murdered or being in a plane crash. I also stressed over what people thought of me and about making a fool of myself. My mind ran 100 miles a minute and this immobilized me making me panic more.

There was no joy or peace in my world. It was not a life I wanted to live.

As a social worker in an outpatient psychiatric clinic, I was supposed to be helping people like me and I felt like a fraud. When I'd hear about cases during our weekly clinical meetings I was horrified thinking I was worse. My anxiety was worse than my coworkers hardest clients. I began to get angry at my anxiety. And that's when I decided that I needed to get better: For me, for my new growing family and for my present and future clients. I needed to grab my mindspace now monopolized by anxiety and put it toward making the world a better place.

I had to stop giving fear power and start giving myself power, I just didn’t know how. So I tried one thing, and then another, and then another. Some things worked and some didn't but I didn't give up. Step by step, I figured it out.

In this video I outline the exact four steps I took to break down the fear and move on to a happy future. Number four is the most important! It took me years to get this one. Without it, I improved a little, but kept having to work very hard for minuscule results. Here are the four things that I did to get my life back on track. Please do these if you are sick and tired of letting fear stop you from living your life:

Commit to getting over your fear.

Formally decide that you want to do this and you’re not going to let anything stop you! People all the time overcome their fears, so you can too. And don’t say that you’re worse than all of them because I swear, you’re not.

Break it down.

Fear has all kinds of power, and it’s built itself up in your mind and in your life. It builds itself up through all kinds of evidence that makes you feel it's true — failing a test or getting rejected by someone, for example — and this makes you feel like you should be afraid. Anxiety gets so invasive in our heads that we have difficulty clarifying what we’re afraid of. The anxiety usually doesn’t have too much beyond that, and if we break that down, we begin to see that there’s not much to be afraid of.

Take action.

Do something, even if you’re just pacing back and forth. You can also take a walk or partake in sports — any repeating movement will help you feel better as it takes your mind off your worries. Use your action to settle your worries. If you are afraid of losing someone you love, spend time with that person so you have no regrets. Or, when a natural disaster strikes far away, don't allow yourself to be overwhelmed with helplessness. Gather supplies to send to the affected community to help them rebuild. Get involved in the healing.

Love yourself through it.

Be kind to yourself! Anxiety and fear is not something to beat yourself up about — it happens to everyone and getting worked up about it will just make it worse. Be gentle and understanding with yourself. Tell yourself, "I understand." when you feel anxious. And then, when you do something to help yourself, consciously appreciate yourself for it.

Jodi Aman wrote the bestseller, You 1, Anxiety 0 to help people win their life back from fear and panic. With sharp empathy into the complexities of people's pain and a keen understanding of how and why people get stuck there, Jodi has decided to dedicate her life to helping people feel less lonely and afraid. Get inspired on Instagram or feel loved on Facebook.