How To Overcome Fear and Let Your Business Thrive
By VICKY BROWN
Fear, everyone has to face it. Oh it can show up in a variety of ways: anger, frustration, procrastination, sadness. But it’s still the same thing….fear. Fear of the unknown, fear of failure, fear of not being or knowing enough, fear of making the wrong decision.
And being a CEO can give you endless opportunity to feel fear. What if that big client does decide to leave you. What if that team member just can’t cut it and you have to let them go. Heck, what if you can’t pay that tax bill.
Oh yeah – there are a thousand and one things you can find yourself afraid of when you’re running a company.
But here’s the problem with fear – it paralyzes us and shuts down our brains. You become stuck; you can’t move forward.
OK – I think we all agree that being afraid sucks, and isn’t helpful. But what can you do about it. How can you get out of the cycle.
Face the dragon first. By that I mean, do the hard thing first thing in the morning. Don’t let the anticipation and your imagination get you quaking in your boots. Don’t just sit there and wallow in fear. Take action, and do it first thing in the morning. Get it out of the way.
The philosopher Seneca said:
“There are more things… likely to frighten us than there are to crush us; we suffer more often in imagination than in reality.”
When you have something hard to do, it’s the anticipation of doing it that can kill you. What if this happens, what if that happens. What should I say, what should I do.
Honestly, stop baking the thing to death and just get on with it. Because once you take that first step, the next step will become clearer.
You’re afraid that client will leave. Well, don’t just sit there – rev up your marketing efforts. Follow up on those lost sales. Reach out to those, perhaps forgotten, referral partners.
And be creative (by the way, creativity is another thing that fear stops in its tracks). How about creating or if you already have one, enhancing, a subscription service and targeting a wider market. Or, is there another service or product you can offer to existing clients. After all, if you can sell more to the ones you have, it can shore up the lost revenue from a client leaving.
How about, you’re afraid you’re don’t know enough. Well then, go out and learn. We all need to expand our knowledge, and you’re no different. There is always something new, a new perspective, a new way of thinking, new tools to use. So even if you’re pretty well versed – there are still things to learn.
And if you’re like me – there are a massive amount of things to learn.
So, don’t let fear freeze you in place. Step forward, and do it right away.
“…Are you guilty of catastrophizing…assuming that the worst will happen.… in fact, we usually have very little information or facts to go on – nope, we’re running on raw emotion.“
Get ahead of it. Are you guilty of catastrophizing. You know, assuming that the worst will happen. What – admit it, we all do it. We create this little play in our heads, where the very worst happens. And in fact, we usually have very little information or facts to go on – nope, we’re running on raw emotion. And that, of course, always makes the process calm and measured. So, off we fly, assured of absolute destruction. Now the problem with all this is that we perceive that imagination as reality, and it anchors us in place and makes us incapable of taking action.
I know you’ve heard this before, but it’s true – it’s rarely as bad as your imagination will make it out to be. For instance, let’s say you made a mistake. Well, I like to figure out some not great scenarios and how I would address them if they happened.
And then I think – now what would the best outcome be, and I focus on that. This appeals to my need to be prepared (yep, I was a girl scout); but it also supports my belief that you have to visualize and speak success into existence. Once I know I’ve created some sort of plan – then I can put that away in my brain, and put all my energy and that dang imagination toward seeing, no being in that success.
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Get perspective. Overcoming fear is all about how far you can see. Fear cuts off your future vision, and forces you to stare at only what is (well what you think is) right in front of you.
Well, the secret is that fear can’t stand up to your ability to see far and wide. When you get perspective, whatever you are afraid of stops being this huge monster, and takes up a much smaller space in relation to the big picture.
And I’ve found that one of the best ways to get your perspective back is to change it. Get away from where you are and into someplace different. In other words – get up, and get out.
Go outside, go for a walk. Or even, go for a run – because nature AND exercise? Well, that’s the magic solution.
But at the very least, change your scenery. it sparks your brain, the physical movement helps you take action, and the whole thing gets your creativity working again.
So don’t let fear stop you. Don’t get stuck. Take action, and take action right away. That’s the way through.