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Overcoming fear in business is the first path that you will need to take to reach your full entrepreneurial potential. One thing about fear is the fact that it is irrational.
The fear of starting a business
Most people tend to have a fear of entrepreneurship which comes from the fact that they do not want to fail.
People tend to think,
The truth is that if you think your new venture will fail then it will.
If you do not practice overcoming fear in business, then it would lead to a catastrophic event that might eventually cause the new venture to fail.
Fear is that irrational emotion that we feel when we are trying to do something worthwhile like getting to start a new profitable venture.
This is usually called the fear of starting. It usually shows up when you are about to begin a project.
Fear can also manifest itself at your traditional job when you are about to start a worthwhile project or make a milestone presentation.
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One thing about this fear is that it is borne out of doubts and uncertainties. Most people tend to make excuses about it. However, one thing remains that this fear is apparent.
It means that you are scared of starting something that you have to do to become a successful person in your life.
Anxiety just like fear is a negative feeling that usually shows up each time that we are about to begin something new.
This is always a feeling that affects our creativity and productivity. This is a feeling that can rob us from enjoying the thrill that comes with the moment.
Instead of enjoying the thrill of conquering fear and achieving something worthwhile, the negative feeling gets in the way and cripples our enthusiasm.
Understanding anxiety
In a work environment, anxiety is generally known as nervousness or fear that people feel when they are about to do something huge or worthwhile.
This type of emotion is that feeling that athletes experience at the Olympics when they are about to run their final heat of 100 metres in front of an anxious crowd of 75,000 people.
The feeling is generally one that gets in the way of your enthusiasm and creative energy. It can be distracting enough to make you not feel like working anymore, regardless of how hard you try.
Then again, it could lead to doubt as people could ask themselves if they would ever make any difference by doing a certain thing.
This form of self-doubt can be a stubborn one. You know that you will always feel better when you start a new venture or company. However, the negative feeling gets in the way and often discourages you from getting to realise this.
What are the root causes of anxiety?
While some people might argue that the feeling of anxiousness is generally caused by a general lack of confidence. In the entrepreneurial world, it caused by a lack of experience.
If you are trying something new (especially a worthy and expensive venture) without any prior experience, this leads to uncertainty. Eventually, uncertainty leads to feelings of anxiousness.
While it is normal for people to feel anxious when venturing into entrepreneurship, getting over fear is the best way to approach this problem.
Overcoming fear in business might sound like a professional course but it isn’t. It is something that has to be done to get to the other side of failure: this is a success.
However, overcoming fear in business is not something that can be done so easily. You need to put in the work necessary to conquering fear if you ever want to make rapid progress in your new venture.
Overcoming fear in business: confronting your doubts
As an entrepreneur, you are expected to start a business, nurture it and make sure that it grows to the next level. There is a lot of risks involved in doing all of this.
The risks often lead to fears and anxieties. There are several physical manifestations of these fears and anxieties. Whatever way you choose to express them, anyway they are bad for your new company.
Overcoming fear in business is something that we must all do. If we do not, it usually snowballs to grow into a more debilitating form.
Worries and doubts should be cleared off from your mind I’d you set out to begin a profitable venture. Most entrepreneurs starting for the first time usually experience this debilitating problem.
Why this is something that you get taught in the Psychology of Business. However, not everyone has the financial means to go to a business school.
Overcoming fear in business is not something that you wait to get taught at schools like Harvard, Oxford, Wharton, INSEAD, IESE, and so on. This is general knowledge that all entrepreneurs should know about.
This is the reason we have taken the time to conduct in-depth research and come out with the best strategies to help new people in business to defeat fear and anxiety when starting.
Overcoming fear in business: 7 sure strategies that will certainly work out for you:
1). Know your fears
Before you set out to confront your fears which prevents you from starting, you will first need to understand what it is that you are afraid of.
When beginning your new company, there are numerous elements that you are generally afraid of. This includes:
- Putting off a good prospective strategy because you think that it is not the right time.
- You are generally afraid of failure.
- Do not know about doing the things that you are supposed to do.
- You are afraid of the fact that you are not good enough to start your company.
2). Know that it is not always about you
Though this strategy of overcoming your anxiousness and fear may sound negative, this is an excellent feeling.
This means that you should not try to focus on the possibility of failing in your new venture. You should stop thinking about how other people view your business.
It is not a big deal to mess up your new venture and fail. It is always a learning process. You can always bounce back.
You can approach this way, thinking that if you fail, it is nothing new, after all, many people have failed in the past before you.
When you dwell on what people will say because you failed, it only increases your doubts and worries.
This could fire up your anxiousness and fear to be big enough to cause a nervous attack and mental distraction.
If these chronic conditions afflict you for too long, you could eventually lose the needed concentration and motivation and then make your new start-up fail.
3). Think about all the worst things that could go wrong
One of the best ways to face your fears squarely is to examine yourself and identify the things that you are afraid of.
Try to think about the worst thing that could go wrong. Try to imagine all the worst-case scenarios ever:
- Somebody refuses your offer.
- You will be embarrassed.
- You will lose all your capital and then sell your home to pay back, making you homeless.
- Will be robbed and attacked.
- Someone will look down on you.
When you think about some of the worst things that could go bad, you will soon see that they are not that bad.
4). Focus on the reasons you are starting your business
One of the best strategies to help you confront anxiety, fear, doubt, worry, and other negative emotions, is to focus your mind on the reasons that you are beginning that business.
You need to be enthusiastic about your new venture. This is one of the best ways to eliminate fear and anxiousness.
You need to ask yourself the following questions to generate the positive energy and enthusiasm needed to defeat fear and anxiety. They are:
- Why are you starting your business?
- What are the reasons for doing this commercial venture?
Once you get answers to these questions, you might want to jot all of these down and note them. You need to concentrate on the reasons and goals.
This will give you the needed drive to help you get rid of your fears and anxieties.
5). Learn to take action
Most entrepreneurs find it difficult to begin their companies because they often feel the negative forces of Inertia.
This is when people prefer things to stay the way they are, even if there is a clear reason for a change to be made.
Inertia is the reason most people tend to procrastinate and put off starting a profitable venture because their fears are just so huge that it cripples and blurs any vision of successes that they stand to get if they succeed.
When you are worried and anxious, it is usually easy to brush things off and set them aside.
However, people need to know that it is usually dangerous to delay staring out because this causes more stress and worsen things off a bit.
Starting your business doesn’t necessarily mean that you take a plunge. How about taking baby steps?
6). Find a support system
Some people find it difficult to battle and overcome their fears because they are scared to death. The prospect of a new venture seems to appear scary to them.
When you are unable to make a crucial executive decision because you are scared, sometimes you need somebody else close to you to give you the needed momentum to overcome that inertia.
A support system is one of the most excellent ways of overcoming fear in business. By a support system, we mean family, friends, colleagues, professional support, or other entrepreneurs.
You should get support from people who tend to offer you much comfort.
You will need to identify and get yourself surrounded by people that are like you that can understand what you might be going through.
These sets of people usually try to understand what you are afraid of and look for how to overcome fear.
7). You should practice how to embrace and accept your fears
Fear is a crucial part of us. It is how we express and control them that counts. Ever heard the words, “Feel the fear, and do it anyway”.
This is a classic line that motivational speakers and therapists use when trying to help us overcome our fears. Everybody is afraid of something in their lives.
However, we are expected to learn how to control and deal with these fears to stop them from letting opportunities slip by our fingers.
Part of overcoming your fear in business is to make mistakes and learn from them. You can make use of your fear to make yourself a better person.
The feeling of fear and making a mistake due to your nervousness or anxiousness can be a necessary learning path. You need to be courageous and handle your fears.
Being courageous means getting scared to death and finding the mental capacity to do what it is anyway.
With time, if you learn to overcome your worries and doubts, you will be able to realise how easy success is to come by the time you get uses to defeating your doubts and anxieties.
According to George Addair, “Everything you need to become a successful entrepreneur is at the other side of fear”.
Conclusion
Overcoming fear in business is something that most people will need to know how to do if they need to maximise opportunities.
Entrepreneurs apart from being business savvy and financially-literate as also expected to be brave and be firm when leaping to snatch opportunities.
If you do not know how to defeat it, anxiousness will always stop you from realising your full potential.
People who undergo feelings of anxiousness while at work, will find most of the above-mentioned strategies above very useful.
These strategies have been developed to keep entrepreneurs focused and motivated to negate any feelings of doubt and nervousness.
It is important to note that, one common reason while people feel anxious or doubtful is lack of experience, confidence, or both.
To succeed with your new start-up, you will have to boost your sense of self-value. You also need to know that you can start and do worthwhile things, such as starting a new company and keeping it profitable.
