How do you face your fears, I get asked quite frequently as a Coach. Have you ever been scared?
Of course I have been scared. When I quit my job and stared my business I was scared. Starting a business is even more fearsome than starting a new job; but I also knew that if wanted to change my life; I needed to face my fears.
Fear is a funny thing. Many times we are attracted to things that make us scared (like a movie, roller coasters, skydiving, bungee jumping, etc)
And in the same way, many of the business fears that we face, we have brought to ourselves, because we decided to become women entrepreneurs. It was our choice.
Way too often, we tend to run away from our fears, and that is when they overtake us, because fear of failure is so powerful that might stop you from even trying.
When we fear change, we sabotage ourselves to avoid new things and we are unconsciously leaded to procrastination. However, when we allow fear to take the best away from us, things only get worse.
And I understand that few things in life seem as terrifying than making a sales call, getting your first loan or firing an employee (except for encountering a bear while hiking in Alaska), but these are things that go hand by hand with owning your own business.
Fears never go away. You will conquer your current fears, but new ones will appear; and that is ok! Fear make us stronger,they make us pay attention to details and do our due diligence.
Fears once faced, become less scary. Each time you succeed over your fears, you will grow in confidence. Most of our fears, never will come to pass and usually those that do realized, are more tolerable than we imagined.
This is what I do to face my own fears; I ask myself:
What's the worst thing that can happen? How likely is that? Can I live with that? Then, I ask myself; What will I think when I'm 85 looking back at my life and I realized I didn't do this thing, because I was afraid? Will I regret it? Then I put all the answers in my own personal scale and decide.
Some times the only way to survive is to face our fears, by confronting them and knowing that you can move forward event though you are afraid... Still I don't like to put myself in a situation where I can encounter a grizzly bear; some fears I'm willing to live with!
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