Being an entrepreneur is totally scary, everyone’s felt the same crippling fear that many entrepreneurs experience. When they started their first company, they had so many anxieties and what-ifs swirling around in my head. What if the company fails? What if people laugh at them? What if he/she can't get customers? What if no one believes in them? What if they don’t believe themselves?
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| Fear of Fear |
Sometimes, they wondered if the fear that they felt were a sign they just weren’t cut out for starting their own company. But here’s the thing: fear is a natural human emotion. Everyone feels fear, especially entrepreneurs who are taking huge risks and striking out on their own. The key isn’t to magically make your fears go away or pretend they don’t even exist. In order to succeed as an entrepreneur, you have to acknowledge, address, and conquer your fears so they don’t control your life.
Here are 5 main fears every entrepreneur must overcome in order to succeed in business (and how to start conquering them):
1. Fear of failure
Fear of failure is one of the very most
common phobias, especially among new and aspiring entrepreneurs. In fact, 33% of Americans admit that the fear of failure holds them back from starting a
business. But despite how terribly final it may feel, failure isn’t the
opposite of success. Failure is a crucial part of success. Here are the examples
that most great people faced failure before success. Countless successful
people and businesses faced a ton of failures on their road to success. Dyson
created 5,126 failed prototypes before finally inventing the bagless vacuum
cleaner. Abraham Lincoln lost the Senate race of 1858. Michael Jordan didn't
make his high school's varsity basketball team the first time he tried out.
Failing doesn’t make you a failure. Giving up does.
Why Fear Can Be Your Best Feedback?
In fact, failing can actually end up being the very thing that sets you up for success. Studies show that failing in the past makes entrepreneurs more than twice as likely to succeed in the future. Rebrand your failures in light of that fact – you didn’t fail, you simply made yourself twice as likely to succeed!
If I move forward with a potential
opportunity, what is the worst-case scenario that could happen if I fail? Can
you live with this? Would life go on? Start viewing failure as a chance to
learn and grow.
2. Fear of uncertainty
Resisting change is a natural impulse. We
tend to default to what’s easiest and most comfortable. You know – if you stay
at your boring dead-end job, at least you know exactly what you're day-to-day
will look like. If you stay in your cruddy apartment, at least you won’t have
to pack your things. If you stay in a bad relationship, at least you're not
alone. In order for things to get better, they’re going to have to change. Fear
of the unknown is so common. But the unknown is only unknown until you know it,
and the only way to know it is to move forward and discover it. Take risks and
move forward with confidence, trusting that you’ll figure things out along the
way.
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Acknowledge that more often than not, life’s going to throw you curveballs. The only thing certain in life is uncertainty. But as long as you stay resilient and keep moving forward the best you can, you'll grow, adapt, and become even stronger than you were before.
Think back on the times when things didn’t
go according to plan. In those situations, how did you adapt and press forward?
What skills did you use to succeed, despite the circumstances?
3. Fear of rejection
On some level, every entrepreneur is at
least a little afraid of rejection. When you’re about to make your pitch to
investors, you might worry they’ll laugh you out of the room. When you’re about
to ask an acquaintance for advice on starting a business, you might be nervous
they’ll tell you you’re dumb for trying. When you’re trying to sell your
product or service to your customers, you might be afraid no one will buy. In
any of those instances, the worst thing that can happen is that they reject you
and say no. But for some reason, that can sound super scary at the moment.
Ways to Face and Overcome the Fear of Rejection
In business, you’re going to face your fair share of rejection. But I’m going to let you in on a secret: that’s actually a good thing. You don’t need everyone to say “yes” to you. You only need the right people to say “yes” to you.
As you search for that perfect business
partner, that ideal investor with deep pockets, that excellent mentor who has
total faith in you, you’re going to encounter a lot of people who aren’t a good
fit. But in order to find out whether they are or not, you’re just going to
have to ask. Don’t take it personally when you get a “no”. You don’t want to
work with someone who doesn’t believe in you or your vision. Let it roll off
your back, and be grateful that they didn’t waste your time any further with a
“maybe” or a non-committal “sure”.
And remember – just because someone rejects you doesn’t mean you don’t have what it takes to succeed. One great thing said by someone that is, “You can be the ripest, a stunner in the world, and there’s still going to be somebody who hates the stunner”.
To help overcome your fear, put yourself in situations where you may get rejected. Ask a mentor or expert that you've been wanting to learn from for virtual coffee or make that sales call you've been dreading to make. The more you get rejected, or are faced with these situations, the more you learn that it will be okay.
4. Fear of not being good enough
Sometimes, the hardest person to please isn’t an investor or a customer or a partner or a parent. So many entrepreneurs struggle with believing they really are good enough to start a business, be successful, and even find happiness. Even when they do experience success, they feel as though they don’t deserve it. They experience feelings of self-doubt from time to time. It’s hard to stay positive and confident in the face of uncertainty – and any setbacks can feel devastating when you already question your abilities.
Fear in the face
Here’s my advice to those who struggle with that same fear:
Invest in relationships
Find mentors, peers, and friends who see
your potential clearly and genuinely believe you deserve to be where you are.
Their belief in you will help give you the confidence to pursue your dreams.
Master your emotions
Fear and self-doubt feel like facts, but
really they’re merely emotions that are only as powerful as we allow them to
be. Acknowledge those feelings for what they are and try not to let them
distort your reality. Learning how to recognize fear for what it is, can help
you master it.
Stop comparing yourself
Embrace what makes you different and focus
on becoming the best version of yourself. Everyone has their own special
talents – the key is to find yours and execute on what you’re good at.
The fear of not being good enough is a mindset
No amount of external success will fix it –
it’s got to come from within. Self-reflection, supportive relationships and
positive self-talk will help you overcome this common fear.
5. Fear of success
You may not think you’re afraid of success
– but it’s actually more common than you’d think. As you move forward, you’re
faced with all kinds of new challenges you’ve never encountered before. All of
the other fears we talked about tend to get magnified as the stakes get higher.
We are worried about what will be different in our lives if we actually
succeed. Trust that you’ll be able to rise to the occasion, just like you have
in the past when you were working to get your business off the ground. Build a
team of strong people you can lean on and learn from.
Focus on the great things that always would
the first priority that is of course success, can offer, such as the thing that
everyone wants which is to become financially strong and creative freedom. And
allow yourself to celebrate the successes you experience! Enjoy how awesome it
is to have your hard work and passion be rewarded.
All 5 of these fears exists in everyone’s life like a common thing– and to be honest, I still feel them from time to time. But I don’t let them dictate my life and stop me from moving forward, I’m way more scared of standing still.
Conclusion
Finally, if you've experienced a lot of pain or trauma or adversity, you could be the Pessimist. And the fear that holds you back, right now, is the fear of experiencing more pain or trauma or adversity. Every time, it feels like every opportunity is too big of a risk and you're afraid of getting hurt again. If more than one of those resonated with you, you should know that is actually completely normal. No one is all procrastinator all self-doubter. Instead, all of these seven fear archetypes operate on a sliding scale, and all of those sliding scale sorts of fit together to form your unique fear fingerprint. You could have one that's completely dominant for you, or you could have several that score high for you in which case fear is probably having a pretty big impact in your life. If you’re really serious about letting go of your fears and starting something new, then the important thing is to understand that you can actually do something about it. Your fear doesn't have to control you because remember all this fear that I just talked about, it's all happening subconsciously, beneath the surface. We don't actually know that's what's going on. We're experiencing this as truth. But the small kind of thing that you can start to identify and understand how your fear is happening, that is the minute that you can start to do something about it because what was subconscious becomes conscious, and suddenly you realize that you have the ability to choose something else. Because when you shine a light on your fear, it's not so scary anymore.
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