Fear often stands between us and our ability to make decisions, take actions, ask for what we want—even to know what we really want. It is the gatekeeper of our comfort zone.
But as poet-philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “He has not learned the lesson of life who does not every day surmount a fear.”
Below are 7 fears that stand between you and your dream of following your own road.
As you go through the list, think about your own concerns about changing course from having a boss to being your boss.
You may experience them all.
But since not all fears are equal, take a moment to rank order each from 1-7 with 1 being the number one fear that’s holding you back.
1. Fear of being judged. Needing approval from family or peers can keep us from going after dreams and goals. And the people who love you the most are the least likely people to support your dream of doing your own thing.
2. Fear of rejection. We worry that no one will like our art or read our novel or want us to coach them. When in fact, rejection just means that someone else has a different opinion.
3. Fear of embarrassment. What if your first talk flops? Or no one comes to your gallery showing? Making mistakes publicly is awful only when we let ourselves feel ashamed.
4. Fear of being alone/abandoned. It’s a lot easier to change course when your spouse or partner has you back. A strong sense of self-worth and what we can offer the world reduces this fear.
5. Fear of failure. A biggie for most of us and born of the notion that it’s not OK to fail, learn from what happened, and try again.
6. Fear of success. More responsibility, more attention, pressure to perform can be frightening when we don’t believe in ourselves.
7. Fear of the unknown. The number one reason people stay in miserable jobs or relationships or locations that they really could leave is simple — fear of the unknown.
At least you know your crappy job or area.
What if you can’t make enough money from your idea?
What if you don’t really like living in Belize or Paris or on an island off the coast of Maine?
Or what if you find out you don’t really want to run a little bookstore in a village in England or be a life coach or any other dream you’d had forever…
The unknown can be exciting and vast if we shift our fear to curiosity.
More importantly, as Tom Peters said, “Unless you walk out into the unknown, the odds of making a profound difference in your life are pretty low.”
If you want to make a profound difference in your life… I’d like to help.
I recently found a way to turn my popular Work at What You Love workshop into a class you can take whenever you want,
The workshop is divided into four parts:
- Get clear
- Get paid
- Get unstuck
- Get a plan
I mention this because the Get Unstuck section includes still more reasons why people fail to pursue their dreams. Reasons that go beyond fear.
Things like…
- procrastination
- self- doubt/lack of confidence
- perfectionism
- lack of support/other people’s skepticism or negativity
- finding the time
- money
- lack of sales or marketing experience/know-how
- the willingness to make the sacrifices or investments of even limited amounts of time/money required to create the life described when you got clear.
Sound familiar?
If so, I just opened the doors to the new Work at What You Love On Demand Workshop.
If you’ve been letting fear – or any of these other challenges – stand between you and the life you really want…
And, if you want to discover what you love to do and how to make money doing it… then I invite you to sign on now.
Author’s content used under license, © 2008 Claire Communications
