Every adult, with few exceptions, thinking about going back to school to get a degree faces a variety of fears. These fears come in all shapes and sizes and are often the obstacles that prevent people from making the commitment to return to school.

Let’s examine some of these thoughts:

“What if I’m not smart enough to be a college student?”

This could be true … or not, but the fact of the matter is that you will never know unless you make the attempt. You can not avoid doing things because you think that you may not be able to do them. If you let that type of irrational fear dictate what you do and what you attempt, you will forever be on the outside looking in. You finished high school or you couldn’t get into college…right? What makes you think that you couldn’t handle college work? You can read and you can write (type) – what else is required but your desire and your commitment?

The reality is that most adults going back to school with just a high school diploma or a GED struggle a bit with freshman level math and English. The good news is that schools realize this and are fully equipped to provide the extra courses and tutoring needed to help a student be successful. Remember, if you don’t succeed then the school can’t succeed. If this is a worry of yours, put it to rest.

“What if I fail?”

Yes, what if you fail? What happens? Do the goblins come out and eat you? Do the failure police come to your home and drag you away in chains. “What if I fail,” is just a thought, it is never real. Failure is an illusion; it is a choice in thinking. Failure is only failure when you think of it as failure, when YOU see it as a negative.

In reality, failure is a snapshot in time during which you judge circumstance; it is a wrong turn on a journey to a destination. You always have a choice of how you can view a thing or an event. Your thoughts about that event are the only thing that you truly can control.

So, you start your pursuit of a degree and you do not finish. Was it better that you never started? Do you avoid everything for fear that you might fail at it? Should you avoid taking a job? Getting married? Having children? Maybe, it’s safer to stay in bed with the door locked. Do you see how irrational fear of failure is? Do you see how irrational fear is?

What if?

These two words have been the undoing of billions upon billions of people throughout history because they are usually followed by a variety of negatives.

If you want to take control of your life, you must take control of fear and see it for what it is. It is a choice of thinking and an illusion. Have you ever seen fear? Can you touch it? Does it exist as an entity?

No, it’s a thought; it’s a concept in your mind that your ego uses to protect itself. How many countless fears have you entertained throughout your life that never materialized? A dozen, a hundred, a thousand, a million?

99.99% of all the things that you fear will happen never do. Remember that statistic the next time you feel fear keeping you from going back to school. Take a chance; you will only be better for it.