How many times have you caught yourself thinking?
- Wouldn’t they be interested in seeing me?
- Who do I think I’m going to for something so big?
- I’m not in your league.
- I don’t have enough credibility/experience/knowledge.
- What happens if I fail?
- I could never do it… because… he would be so jealous of me.
- That is too difficult and would show me as a fraud.
- I should do… before I make those sales calls (or anything else I’m afraid to do)
Feel free to add some of your fearful thoughts to this list. The more you identify, the more you can get rid of them.
Fear paralyzes. It prevents you from taking action and moving towards success. It allows you to dismiss valuable opportunities and may even prevent you from seeing them altogether. The fear of failure can slow down and even destroy success if you let it.
The first time I felt a big failure in life was when I had to close my first business. After seven years of putting my heart and soul into my designer knitwear business, I had to make the very difficult decision to close it. The fund has fallen out of the market and he had no other choice.
I was devastated. My dreams were shattered and I felt like a failure. It didn’t help that some family and friends told me I wasn’t cut out to be in business. Then a real friend came over and told me to sit down and write a detailed list of all the things he had learned over the seven years. Four sheets of paper later he had me read it aloud. That was powerful enough, but what he said next changed my life: “So after reading that, how can you think you’re a failure? Life is about learning from adversity and moving on.”
I also learned that the more we see failure as a negative experience, the more likely we are to let our fears keep us from achieving success. So here are six steps you can take towards success:
7 steps to success
1. Remember that fear slows down or even destroys success, if you allow it. Identify the fear and change your mindset by taking positive steps to move forward.
2. Look past the fear by pushing it out of your mind so that you can see the opportunities life brings you and take action on them.
3. Refuse to listen to people who are negative and put you down when things go wrong.
4. Surround yourself with people who support you and who challenge you in positive ways.
5. Whenever you fail at something, big or small, write a list of what you’ve learned, read it, and see how many stepping stones you’ve created to move forward.
6. Seek learning in everything.
7. Take positive action now!
