Why I am No Longer Afraid of Driving- 2 Years After a Dangerous Accident
In 2019 I met with a car accident that shook me to the core. It had been almost two years since I had driven. Here is exactly what happened. I was driving on the highway and the car in front of me was speeding. I was driving slowly as it was raining and I feared skating midway. The car behind me kept honking which pressured me to speed up. Suddenly the car in front of me stopped, I banged into the car and then, the car behind me banged me. I was sandwiched between both the cars. I broke my arm and my leg.
Fast forward to December,2021. “You have to go out and drive, enough is enough ‘’ my mom yelled at me. I was frustrated. She couldn’t understand how deeply the fear of driving had sunk in. “I’m not driving! Period.” I yelled back. The fear was expanding day by day.
Whenever I had to go out, I needed someone to drive me. Slowly I realized that this fear was limiting me. It was making me dependent. To make it even worse, whenever I sat behind someone who was driving I would drive them crazy by saying things like “Take it slow, you’re speeding!”, “Don’t overtake, it’s dangerous”, “We almost hit that vehicle, maintain distance”. It was hell.I knew one thing, I have to conquer this fear before it makes its roots too strong to be pulled out.
“Don’t let the fear of striking out hold you back.”
— Babe Ruth
I was watching a lot of Youtube videos about people who conquered their fear of driving and I saw a video in the recommendation titled “The 5-second rule”. Although the video didn’t mention anything regarding driving, I was curious because I had heard a lot about Mel Robbins-Author of the book The 5-second rule.What she was saying actually made sense. But, my questioning mind sought proof. I went online and read some research papers regarding this and found that this stuff works. If you don’t already know the 5-second rule, let me explain it.
What Exactly is the 5-Second Rule?
If you want to make a decision or act on a certain goal of yours, you have a 5-second window to make that decision. In your mind, you simply have to count 5–4–3–2–1. What this actually does is, activate your prefrontal cortex which helps you to make decisions. If you don’t take action in this 5-second window your mind will start hesitating to act.
If you want to know more deeply about this I recommend you to watch Youtube videos. Simply search the 5-second rule and you’ll get tons of results.
Sounds simple right? And that is the exact reason it workes. Now, I only had to apply it in real life.
The next day I took my TVS Scooty Pep(not a promotion) out of the parking lot. Achievement!! Ngl, I was extremely scared when I saw the road in front of me. I had a flashback of the accident. The vehicles were honking, speeding, and doing whatnot. I took a few deep breaths to calm down. “If not now, then never Neha,” I said to myself. Now comes the 5-second window. In my mind, I started counting backward. 5–4–3–2–1 aaaaaaand I started driving. In the first few minutes, the fear was still peeping from the back of my overthinking mind. But after a while, I was back to normal.I felt as if I have won some battle that’s been going on for the past few years. It may seem a bit of an exaggeration but only those who have some kind of fear and have pushed past it know what I’m talking about.
Conclusion
What I have realized is that our fears keep growing only because we allow them to. We let them grow by overthinking and not taking action immediately. It takes a lot to push past your fears. But I have also learned that you feel the most alive when you do what scares you and conquer that fear of yours that has been limiting you. You can apply the 5-second rule to any fear you have in your life. Initially, you will feel uncomfortable but that is the part of the process. You are supposed to be uncomfortable when challenging your brain but Im sure if you keep pushing you will ultimately do it.
