In this post, I will explain how to handle your fears in business.
Fear is also known as the feeling of anxiety when perceiving a danger in a present (or a future) situation.
I believe I am not too audacious when I affirm most of us have already experienced fear.
When it comes to business, I have listed a couple of fears that can be crippling. Let’s go through them.
The fear of failure
We live in a society where people tend to be shamed when they fail.
Unfortunately, that has created a situation where there is very little room for failure in the world.
When I started doing business, I feared failing because as I was experiencing the Impostor Syndrome.
I thought “how can I successfully compete with competitors that are way more experienced than me?”
Once I understood that failures are part of the entrepreneurial journey, I moved forward.
It is OK to fail. In fact, the more failures, the better! As long as you learn from your failure, they’ll become temporarily!
The fear of “what will people say or think?!”
For some of us, other people’s opinions and judgements might matter.
When starting a business, one would usually be excited to speak about it to their loved ones i.e., family, partner, and friends.
Out of care and curiosity, it is likely that they ask questions. Questions such as:
- “Are you sure?”
- “Are you not afraid of losing everything?”
- “What if it doesn’t work out?”
No matter how determined you are, chances are that a small voice in your mind might whisper “what if they are right?”
People’s opinion can either liberate us or enclose us. When it comes to discussing your business ideas, choose your entourage carefully. Especially if you are still at the beginning.
You do not need approval from people. You only need approval from God! Once you have God’s approval, your customers’ approval will follow!
The fear of succeeding.
The fear of succeeding is more common than one would think.
When I started my business, I was scared of selling. That fear was due to 2 reasons:
- I had no selling experience.
- I feared my customers would think my product were expensive.
That fear started fading when I did my first sale. Not only my product price tags were OK, but my customers would reorder.
The fear of succeeding is usually associated to the fear of change. One would think:
- “If I succeed, my workload will increase. Will I manage?”
- “I will constantly need to constantly improve or innovate.”
- “Will I manage to satisfy all of my customers?”
Success will make you change your routine, and you need to be ready for that. Therefore, you need to plan your road to success to the best of your knowledge and abilities.
Otherwise, what would be the point of creating a business if you do not plan its success?
How to counter those fears?
As a Quality Assurance Engineer, one of the most amazing tools I have learned and practiced was the FMEA.
FMEA stands for Failure Mode and Effect Analyses. It is particularly adapted to anticipating any failures.
Basically, before doing anything, I will take a moment and think through:
- What can stop me (or slow me down) from succeeding?
- What consequences will I be facing?
- How critical are those consequences?
- How can I prevent that failure?
Doing this exercise will give you confidence on how to react if a failure arises 😊.
What about you? What business-related fear have you faced? How did you handle them? Let us know in comments.
This post was about how to handle your fears in business.