Each of our fears presents a unique opportunity for growth. Every humain being experiences fear. It's part of our nature that cannot be subtracted from our existence. Even the strongest people experience fears.
How you perceive fear will determine how you respond it. Contrary to what it might feel like, fears exist to highlight your unmet potential. If we have the courage to face them honestly, openly and willingly, fears can show us where our true potential lies.
We all face our own share of rational and irrational fears. Rational fear is a fear of something that presents a very real danger.
The fears we’re talking about, however, are irrational. The self-created kind made up from assumptions we have about an imaginary future and hold us back from living the empowered life we'd love to live.
Would you rather let these fears chase you around, dictating your outcomes and sabotaging your life? Or are you okay with feeling the initial discomfort of acknowledging the fear, knowing you have the power to look it in the face and say, “bring it on, I’m ready to conquer you!”
Here are some of the biggest fears that may be holding you back from achieving success and what to do about them.
Fear of failure
If you have a fear of failure, you typically refuse opportunities to try new things. You don’t stick with things long enough, quitting before you have a real chance of tasting success. You might be unable to stand to lose because you believe it means you’re a failure.
If I fail, I’m a failure.You believe failure is inherently bad, instead of seeing failure as feedback.
Failure is nothing more than feedback, and it’s one of the biggest drivers of success. The sooner you can fail at something, the sooner you will succeed. The longer you work at something, the better you become, and the better your chances of succeeding are.
The most significant step you can take forward to face this kind of fear is to reconcile with failure, to embrace it and to never think it will be a disaster if you fail at something.
It’s not the failure itself that’s the problem, it's the story we tell ourselves about what the failure will mean. Stop focusing on winning or succeeding and instead immerse yourself in the work. Fall in love with the process. No one wins or succeeds at every attempt, and you are no exception. The sooner you start, the sooner you will fail and, with persistence, the closer you will be to success.
Fear of success
You are afraid to succeed because of what it will mean to your lifestyle, your family, and your current life set up. To succeed means everything will change, which feels uncomfortable, so you sabotage yourself to avoid success. You hold yourself back from opportunities. You are addicted to staying the same and you prioritize comfort over growth.
This is somehow a strong kind of fear that can be related with other types of fear:
• Fear of responsibility
• Fear of standing out/ fear of the limelight
• Loss of control
• Feelings of inadequacy / Imposter Syndrome
the way to overcome this type of fear is to take small leaps instead of large leaps. Once you get a taste of some success, it will fuel your ability to handle more.
Fear of not being good enough
This is typically the kind of fear I'm facing most of the time. If you fear not being enough, what are you really afraid of? Finding out you still have more work to do to get good enough? You falsely assume the distance between where you are now and where you want or need to be is too great.
You fear being exposed for not being as good as others. You do compare yourself to others and adopt a victim mindset, with few options for how to improve the situation, which makes you lazy most of the time and not taking any step forward to improve yourself.
This type of fear might be related to fears:
• Fear of comparison and judgment
• Fear of failure
• Fear of hard work
• Perfectionism
• Entitlement
Start before you’re ready, understand your strengths, be honest about your weaknesses and let go of perfectionism. Don't try to stand out because this is not within you hands (external locus of control). When you stop comparing yourself to others, you stop judging yourself so harshly and the fear of not being good enough subsides. Then you can harness the fear of not being good enough to propel you to do great work.
Fear of humiliation and criticism
You are typically afraid to “look bad”. You are willing to do anything to avoid saying or doing things that elicit judgment from others. You will often make up stories and lies to make yourself look good and avoid judgment or humiliation. You exhibit defensive, protective behavior and never let your guard down. You are afraid to start from scratch, breaking free from old roles and being someone new. You are unwilling to go through the process of learning. What will I look like to others?
In a nutshell, you believe how others perceive you is more important than how you perceive yourself. You afraid of being rejected, criticized or judged.
No matter what you do in life, others will always criticize you. When you shift from a framework of caring what others think to being concerned with your own choices, the fear of humiliation goes away.
You come to realize that everyone who’s ever done anything great started solely with what they had at the time. They chose long-term self-satisfaction over short-term judgment from others, and it created a space for them to follow their hearts and remain true to personal growth.
Feeling embarrassed is simply a sign you’ve grownpastyour previous standards and have developed new standards.
Fear of being wrong
If you learn something that makes you question a past belief, it might mean you have to admit you’ve been wrong all along. Changing your life means changing rules and beliefs. If you fear being wrong, you’ll never make a change.
You avoid being wrong at all cost, to avoid ever admitting to other things I might be wrong about. You think that if you show your vulnerability, others will spot a weakness and take advantage of you. You are unwilling to take on new ideas or concepts and adhere strictly to dogma or outdated traditions.
Change the faulty perception that you can never change your mind. A rigid, inflexible mind that always needs to be right is unhealthy. A mind that is flexible, adaptable and capable of adopting new ideas is healthy. Work on creating a mind that can be influenced and changed based on new information.
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