How would it feel like to conquer them?

The genesis of fears is in your experiences. In particular, fears are carried over from childhood. If you had good experiences for example in trusting human beings and had that trust justified you are more likely to be trusting as an adult. On the other hand, if you were betrayed quite often you will grow up with an innate suspicion about human beings. Moreover, many of these experiences, both good and bad are bequeathed to us by our nears and dears, not deliberately, nevertheless planting a seed in our personality traits and sealing it almost in perpetuity.  

Self fulfilling prophecies 

Fears become self fulfilling prophecies when key figures in our lives say something negative about us or our abilities. For instance, a remark of a parent that one child is better skilled than another, or even worse, that the child is not capable of a particular skill at all crushes the self esteem so badly at to become a lifelong burden. It leaves a scar which may not be remedied by any kind of salve. 

So, what is it about fears that are destructive in nature. To begin with, fears paralyze you. You are not in a position to think straight. More critically, you under estimate your abilities enormously. You begin to doubt whether you have any abilities.This not only prevents you from forging ahead confidently but virtually freezes you into inactivity. When you reach that state of low self-esteem you feel like a worm. You retreat into your shell and shun the world. Any interaction with fellow human beings only deepens the sense of worthlessness. 

The only antidote to paralyzing fear is to take deliberate action about the thing you fear. Action cures fear.  

One of the most common fears that get entrenched in many of us is the fear of public speaking. This was the case with me too. I grew up in a very conservative neighborhood in the south of India where being low key was a huge plus. Expressing your opinion in social gatherings was frowned upon. You had to be a conformist. This actually forced you into building a wall around yourself, become part of a crowd and just merge in. This turned me into a introvert.  

Many years later a rather life changing event occurred when my father was transferred to the capital city New Delhi where everything from the environment to the language being spoken changed completely. Not only was I forced to adjust to the new place but I had to contend with total strangers and had to build a totally new set of friends. In a way this was providential. I begin to shed the reticence in interacting with people. Along the way, I started picking up the ability to speak fluently in the national language. As my confidence grew, my fears were being pushed back inexorably. I also started noticing something very startling. With the new found confidence levels, I was discovering that I was slowly becoming a spontaneous speaker in social gatherings. Although there was no overnight conversion to an extroverted personality, I was moving in that direction most definitely. It was as if the weeds of fear were being replaced with healthy growing plants. Even friends started commenting about the change. It was most certainly a change for the better.

But this was also greatly due to my determination to overcome the fear. It is something you internalize. Nobody can take that decision for you. They can help you, support you and encourage you but you need to travel that path yourself. And at the end of the day, it is a liberating feeling.  You feel the shackles of doubt being removed. You feel invigorated. You feel confident. It is amazing how the ability to operate with confidence comes flooding back. You have just dealt a death blow to the fear in you.