Fear is a nasty challenge. We do not always catch how we are dominated by fears. We are afraid to fail on a project so we never try to do it. Therefore, we fail to do it. We fail because we are afraid to fail.
We do this kind of stuff all of the time. We stop performing gutsy stuff because we worry too much about what someone might think of us when we get recognized for not making it happen correctly. We worry way too much about many of the things that truly do not matter. We are afraid of what someone might think about us. Oh, we will tell someone who catches us being afraid about something that we are not afraid. We do not even know how to admit we are afraid. We are afraid of what someone might think of us if we admit we are afraid. I remember a business mentor once asked me a serious question. He asked, "What are you the most afraid of, failing or succeeding?"
I could not answer that question. I obviously gave him the traditional answer. I told him I was more afraid of failing. He shook his head back and forth quietly with a soft 'roll-of-the-eyes' gester that said no way. He might as well have responded by saying, "Yea, right." He did not buy my answer. I remember having this same conversation with another businessman several years later. I asked him what he was the most afraid of, failing or succeeding? His answer was as swift as mine was years earlier. He said, "Failing, I suppose."
We are so afraid of failing. We fail to recognize how much failing dominates our fears. We do not even want to be wrong when we answer that simple question. We are dominated by our fears. Our fears have wrestled our courage into a weak ball of procrastination procedures. Every time we plan to do something really big, we discover some great reasons why we cannot do that really big thing. It becomes a little rubber band we wrap around the other rubber bands we use to make this funky big ball. Eventually we hold onto this useless ball of rubber bands. We set it on our desks as if it is something to be proud of, something others will admire. It is silly. I do it, you do it. We allow our silly fears to get in the way of doing some very big and wonderful things in our lives. Go read the previous post about the dental hygienist and her electrician husband who had two good incomes providing a fair safety net series of reasonable jobs as they stepped out of that comfort zone and decided to build two unique business models on their own. They decided to risk it all by stepping out into the risky world of small business ownership just to find a better lifestyle to manage. They were not afraid to fail. What is even more important, they were not afraid to succeed. Go read it. It is titled, "Oh, By The Way...I Have A Question For You." Go check it out. It has some deeper lessons buried inside it about managing fears successfully.
Study what was not said. Think about what was not shared. Do not assume that these people were just 'lucky.' They were not lucky. They did have many things come up in their lives that presented them with some big challenges to learn how to overcome. They faced the same curve balls you and I face. They had the same type of mental stress you and I feel. They made the same mistakes you and I experience. The difference between their succees and ours is that they did not just shift their problems around, from note list to note list, they solved them. They were not afraid to succeed.
We worry so much about making mistakes that we actually forget how success comes to life. Success comes from making mistakes. We need to quit being afraid of succeeding. We need to make more mistakes. We get totally pissed off when someone points out a mistake we made. We protect our mistakes like they are some kind of hidden feature in our life. They are not features to be hidden. We need to make more of them. We need to litter our business trail with thousands of them. We need to throw the rubber band ball away and go make more mistakes. We save and nurture our quiet little mistakes like they are anchors holding our boat inside the harbored and protected bay of life. What? Get real. Go make more mistakes. Go live life to its fullest potential. Take more risks. Quit fearing fear.
Our fears work hard on us. We sometimes do not even know what we fear the most. Fears make us stop making mistakes. Fears cause us to reduce the risks we need to experience in order to win big. As a result, we never win big. We manage little fears with little effort that seems like mountains to do in life. We become overwhelmed with managing little fears. As a result, we have little to show for our heavy fear management efforts. I see it all of the time. We are so afraid to succeed that we never get off the starting pad to fail and we never truly see what we can generate. Business owners use all of their fear trying to overcome the beginning efforts of just getting to the starting point of owning their own business. It takes a ton of courage to begin your own business model. Most spend all of their fear management energy just getting started. Once they are up and running, they seem to be waiting for the success to appear.
Now that they own their own business, they discover how many more new problems they still need to solve. They get overwhelmed with the idea of having to always solve problems that they stop solving them and begin shoving them to the side. They somehow think those problems will either go away or solve themsleves. They shift their problems from one list of 'to do's' to another list of 'to do's.'
Solve your business problems, don't just shift them around.
Start learning how to deal with your fears. Begin learning how to believe more of what you need to do to win big. Begin to work on how to solve the bigger problems. Start majoring in the majors, not the minors. The minor stuff will dominate your fear levels enough to screen your successes away from the view of your effort. You want your most difficult work to be headed towards your most high expectations. Get bigger dreams, get higher sights and accept making more business decisions that will help to solve more business problems. That is the best description I can provide for how that dental hygienist and her electrician husband learned how to succeed. They were not afraid to succeed. They solved the problems that helped them to succeed. They are still solving problems that help them to continue to succeed.
Solve your business problems, don't just shift them around.
Guess what? When you solve one of those larger business problems, guess what, another one is waiting for you to give it attention. That is what small business ownership is all about. Solve the next problem, too. Solve the next one, and the next one, and the next one, and the next one, and the next one, and the next one...you get the picture. Solve your small business problems, don't just shift them around.
You deserve to become less afraid of succeeding. You need to quit worrying about failure. You need to stop being afraid of success.
Solve your business problems, don't just shift them around.
Until next time...
No comments:
Post a Comment