Fears of Seasons Past (Conclusion)
We’ve reached the the last blog of my three-part series Fears of Season’s Past where I talk about the six types of fears that can have a lasting impact on the success of small business owners. How fitting, since it’s Christmas today and I just finished watching “A Christmas Carol”. Happy Holidays everyone!
The first part addressed the fear of failure and the feature of loss. The second part, talked about the fear of rejection and the fear of judgment.
Today I’m going to tackle the last two: fear of the unknown and fear of success.
And full disclosure: writing this final post was the most challenging for me because I felt my own fears starting to creep into my thoughts and actions. Finishing this series, however, was one of my goals and these last two fears are extremely important to round out the framework I have been addressing to help push you past your fears and succeed in your business.
EMBRACE CHANGE TO IMPROVE YOUR SMALL BUSINESS
So let’s get to it and start with the fear of the unknown.
When I think about the fear of the unknown, my mind plays out the classic scene of your everyday horror or suspense film where the protagonist is lurking down a dark hallway or walking down a set of basement stairs then they start to move very slowly, step by step. The sounds of synthesizers and strings start to play in the background, and you, as a viewer, start to feel impatient anxiously awaiting what is to come.
That is the fear of the unknown, feeling of not knowing what is to come. And since we don’t have a clear idea of what is about to happen, we often turn to negative thoughts or irrational beliefs which makes us feel uneasy and uncomfortable.
You could even equate the fear of the unknown to being the fear of anything that is beyond our comfort zone.
So how does this show up in business?
One common situation I find with my clients is when a business owner or entrepreneur decides to launch a new product, program, or service. Clients are extremely anxious about how the new item will perform. So, they start to feel uneasy, or anxious, like we all do when we watch those suspense films.
And then, what I call “the ugly Ps,” perfectionism and procrastination take root and cause business owners to divert, re-engineer, or reanalyze, instead of simply putting it out there.
A way to minimize this particular fear, especially if we’re afraid to release or launch this new offering for fear of the unknown is this: Do not be tied to an outcome or result.
As business owners, we often hear, “start with the end in mind” This may be true when it comes to thinking about your overall business vision or strategy but for your day-to-day activities or tasks, however, try not to think about what’s on the other side of that door (or at the bottom of the staircase, if you will).
Instead, move or walk (slowly if you want) and adopt the “just do it” mentality and don’t commit yourself to a particular outcome or result.
Simply commit to an action.
This commitment involves a minor shift in your mindset, but will be extremely helpful when this fear of the unknown comes up.
Another way the fear of the unknown shows itself in business is when we start to feel a transformation is happening. We start to feel uncomfortable when things are changing around us. It may be that we’ve pivoted in our business recently or are going through a “rebranding” of our product or service and we don’t know what all of this means.
The fear of letting go (one of the first fears I wrote about) also starts to come into the picture, because we are letting go of the status quo and stepping out of our comfort zone.
It’s also the fear of letting go because now, if you’re transforming into something big or greater than before - what happens to the “old” you? What will your “new identity” be?
This fear of the unknown is especially powerful if you’ve identified for so long as one identity, for example, the breadwinner, housewife, caregiver, etc.
You are plagued with questions like:
Who will I be? What will this mean for those around me?
What happens if I fail?
Someone once said to me, “in business you need to be comfortable with the uncomfortable.” In fact, it’s the price of doing business. Everyday we are confronted with something uncomfortable, otherwise, how do you know whether or not you are pushing yourself?
And if you’re comfortable with being comfortable right now, that is fine as long as you know, it’s just a little break before you climb up to that next level. And if you don’t want the next level, you can and should be fine with being comfortable.
There’s a saying that there are two guarantees in life: death and taxes. I would add that “change” is pretty much inevitable as well. So embrace it! Embrace the change, embrace the unknown.
WHAT KEEPS YOU FROM REACHING YOUR TRUE POTENTIAL?
A classmate in high school once told me, “You know, had you only studied harder, you probably would have been valedictorian of our class.” At the time, I sat and shrugged my shoulders thinking, “oh well, but I’m still happy with the St. Benilde Award of Service which I was given.”. (I went to Catholic school and this was still a prestigious award in my mind.)
However, that comment will forever be ingrained in my brain, because I’ve always wondered whether or not it’s true. Would I have been valedictorian if I had only put in the effort?
And therein lies the issue: I didn’t want to put in the effort. But why?
This is the Fear of Success.
Fear of success for me is a couple different things:
Fear of success is about not wanting to put in the hard work to get to that next level.
Fear of success is the fear of being in the spotlight and having added responsibilities
Fear of success is the fear of letting go of who you once were and other’s new expectations of you
HOW HARD DO I HAVE TO WORK?
Hard work is, well, hard. And the fear of success keeps us often from working our hardest because we’re already thinking several steps ahead. We are afraid that once we meet that particular goal, then there is an additional expectation or goal that we “MUST” meet, otherwise, we are “not good enough”.
It’s very similar to those folks who set goals for themselves that they know they can meet versus setting some stretch goals.
After meeting certain expectations and we now have to move our baseline, because,it’s certainly easier to simply keep the bar low and meet the low bar vs. striving to get to the high bar and staying there.
In business it’s the same. Clients sometimes tell me, “Why do I need to expand or grow this business to its potential? It’s fine right now doing what it’s doing.”
When this statement comes up, the question I pose to them is this: “What kind of impact do you want your business to have?”
And how great would it be, if that impact was wider and more spread out amongst your community and beyond your immediate radius or circle of influence?
ARE YOUR READY FOR YOUR CLOSE-UP?
Not only does the fear of success keep people from reaching their potential, it often manifests itself in as the fear of being in the spotlight.
When you are successful, the spotlight, energy, and attention is all on you. You are now known, recognized, and responsible. There’s an immediate expectation that comes with success that you are now a “role model” and all eyes are on you, ‘so you better not mess up’ (that’s when fear of failure comes back into the picture).
With success comes responsibility, even for myself personally, more people will rely on me like family and friends and therefore, how do I help? There’s that feeling that I know I will get overwhelmed. More people depending on me, means more people care about what I do and say.
And in the end, I don’t want to disappoint.
The easiest way out is not striving for continued success. Instead, we just fly under the radar and no one needs to expect much from us.
In fact, what I’m about to say will sound counter intuitive, but fear of failure is many times easier, because we can say we tried and failed, so now we simply go back into our comfort zone. Nothing has changed.
Very similar to the fear of the unknown, if you succeed, you end up asking yourself, “Who will I be?” and “How will that impact the expectations of others and what they rely on me for today?”
Instead, imagine this: What if you finally did get there and succeeded?
What would be different for you and your life?
What would be different for your business?
What amount of possibilities could there be?
Really envision your dreams, instead of giving into the fear of responsibility and allowing the negative thoughts and limiting beliefs to enter your subconscious.
It is key to be prepared for what success really means and looks for ourselves and our businesses.
And hopefully once you think about that for a second, you are stepping into this new zone that has us back to the feeling of, “my palms are sweaty, knees weak, arms are heavy.”
But this time, we truly DO feel the fear and NOW, we feel it consciously knowing that it is there.
And rather than going into our natural response of “fight or flight”, we want to cautiously (like in the movies) or quickly go through it.
The best things in life are almost always found on the other side of fear. All you have to do is go through that fear.
And if you need me to catch you on the other side or hold your hand through it, I will.
Nelson Mandela said, “I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.”
At the end of the day, if you have been given a gift then, “why fear the success it will bring you?
Why not share it to its fullest potential and just see what happens?
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Would love to hear your thoughts, questions, or concerns that have come up for you from this blog series. Also, if you have any topics you would like me to write about in 2020, I’d love to get some suggestions too. Please feel free to share comments below or send me a line.
And if you haven’t had a chance to complete your Year end review and 2020 planning worksheet, please do so soon and we can start embracing and moving through our fears together.