“Don’t fear failure. Not failure, but low aim, is the crime. In great attempts, it is glorious even to fail.” Martial artist and actor Bruce Lee
Did you know that I feel fear? Yes, it’s true (and it really is the “F” word as it’s easy to let it stop you from moving forward).
You know that fear never goes away, no matter how long you’ve been doing something, there will always be something that scares you.
Business is scary.
Sure the fears change, and things that used to scare you don’t so much as you become more accomplished at them, but in business, there will always be things that push you out of your comfort zone and make you feel fearful.
What scares you?
Asking for money?
Saying “No” (fear that you’ll never get another client if you say no to someone who doesn’t seem to be a good fit)
Saying “Yes” (fear that you won’t be good enough, that you’ll somehow fail) can even be scarier than saying no!
Fear of success is a big one and it’s common too.
Being in business – having to rely on yourself to make an income.
Fear of technology (I hear this one all the time) stops you from doing so much. You can learn tech, it’s really not that hard and if you don’t keep up, you will really lose so many opportunities. Remember, you can always pay other people to do tech things for you if you really want to remain a technophobe, but you’ve got to use it in this day and age, so you may as well look at it as a challenge to overcome rather than ignoring it and hoping it will go away (it really, really won’t).
Your biggest business obstacle is fear.
You don’t have to let it derail you from chasing your dreams and making your business a success.
Instead, you have to find what drives you, so that your desire is greater than your fear.
What do you desire? What drives you?
Your desire to help people, to make a difference, to have a positive impact?
Your desire to turn your passion into a business?
Your desire to run your own life rather than having a boss who tells you what to do and when?
Your desire to reap what you sew? That you get the rewards of the efforts you put in, rather than someone else’s business getting the fruits of your labour?
Your desire to put a roof over your family’s head or be able to work from home or create a lifestyle that works for you and your kids (like being able to work from home around school hours)?
When you know what really drives you, it helps to crowd out the fear and gives you the courage to do the things that really matter to you.
Overcoming Your Fears
Write down what matters to you, what drives you, what you really desire, and stick it up somewhere you can see every day as a reminder every time you hear that voice in your head telling you to stay small, to hold back, and to not take that action.
Make your desires that drive you feel bigger than your fear!
Perfectionism is just fear pretending to help you.
Take messy action. It moves the needle and helps you become less scared.
Computer science professor Randy Pausch—who had recently received a terminal pancreatic cancer diagnosis—shares some advice two months before his death:
“It is not the things we do in life that we regret on our deathbed. It is the things we do not. I assure you I’ve done a lot of really stupid things, and none of them bother me. All the mistakes, and all the dopey things, and all the times I was embarrassed — they don’t matter. What matters is that I can kind of look back and say: Pretty much any time I got the chance to do something cool I tried to grab for it — and that’s where my solace comes from.”
It’s time to confront your fears and find your passion, your motivation and your drivers so that you keep on going rather than getting stuck in fear.
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