Fear is a great stopper. It can make your heart beat faster, your palms grow sweaty, and it can paralyze you in place.
In business, fear can become an ever growing hurdle on your road to success. If you let it.
I invite you to stare your fears down and take action to move through to the other side.
One way to do that is to have fear busting strategies in place so that you have your own tricks up your sleeve when fear comes calling.
The very first fear buster that I use is called ... who is talking to me right now? That can also be whose voice is playing the danger alert in my head? Is it me? Someone from my past? Some imagined person as in the invisible they. Some of the self talk that can happen is, "What if I try and I fail?" "What if they think I'm too (fill in the blank)?" "What if this is a mistake, how will I recover ... maybe it's better to not try at all" and so on ...
Once I can get in touch with who is sounding the FEAR alert, I can then move on to the next fear buster which is - is it true? I simply ask myself, is the danger that fear is telling me about true? It is true that I might fail, it's also equally true that I might succeed. If the fear is telling me that I can't possible do something, I want to know if that is true. Has no one else ever done what I am trying to do? If someone else has done it, then why on earth can't I? And, if no one else ever has, why can't I be the first?
And the final fear buster that I use is tap an advocate. I have a close knit group of friends and advisors who know me and my mettle pretty darned well. When I have wrestled with fear and managed to whittle it down to just doubt ... that's when I call on one of my advocates for a reality check and an attitude adjustment or uplift to push me on my way toward achieving my goals.
I hope that when you find fear messing with your head, your heart, and your goals - that you will use these ideas to keep moving forward.
I would love to hear how you handle and disarm your fears - so please be sure to leave a comment here or send me a tweet at http://twitter.com/zitagustin
In the meantime, here are a bunch of quotes that will also give you insight to how to handle fear.
Dale Carnegie
Inaction breeds doubt and fear. Action breeds confidence and courage. If you want to conquer fear, do not sit home and think about it. Go out and get busy.
Les Brown
Too many of us are not living our dreams because we are living our fears.
Norman Vincent Peale
When you are afraid, do the thing you are afraid of and soon you will lose your fear of it.
Denis Waitley
Procrastination is the fear of success. People procrastinate because they are afraid of the success that they know will result if they move ahead now. Because success is heavy, carries a responsibility with it, it is much easier to procrastinate and live on the 'someday I'll' philosophy.
Unknown Author
Feed your faith and your fears will starve to death.
Author unknown
Do not let your fears choose your destiny.
Richard Bach
Listen to what you know instead of what you fear.
Henry Ford
Whether you think you can or think you can't, you're right.
Henry David Thoreau
If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.
