FEAR. What is fear? What are YOU afraid of? Do you want to overcome your fears? These are a few questions asked to provoke serious thought.

The definition of fear (n) – an unpleasant emotion caused by the belief that someone or something is dangerous, likely to cause pain, or a threat.

Many of us have experienced fear at some point in our lives from childhood and even possibly now. The subject of fear is so broad in basic forms and even to serious conditions that may require medical attention. For this post, however, I am pondering the fears that aspiring entrepreneurs, business owners and creative professionals are usually faced with. This would be fear of failure, fear of success,  and fear of the unknown.

Were you able to read the full definition of fear above and fully understand its meaning? I had to go back and reread it. Notice that fear is described as an emotion; an emotion which in effect is a state of mind or a feeling! Hmm. Lets think about that. So, if I change my mind about the way I THINK about what I am afraid of… what I am afraid of will become insignificant; dimensioned in some way? Based on the above definition, that answer would be yes.  Another question to consider. Are the things we are afraid of a threat to our future? So, basically, if we change our thoughts we can overcome FEAR. That’s great news!

I was inspired to write this post because of my own personal fears regarding business ownership. The vision I have for my business was so multifaceted and layered that it felt unattainable and too big to grasp. This caused a sort of internal paralysis or what is known as analysis paralysis. Meaning I was over thinking things, focusing on accomplishing the big picture and not moving forward to take any action at all. How can we overcome fear and move beyond the things that we are most afraid of? There are numerous articles, books, doctors and business coaches who are available to help us discover how to overcome the fears we struggle with.

There are so many business owners who took the leap of faith, started their business and are making massive progress. Why not you? Why not me? It’s not that they are any better than us. They just decided to overcome their fears and move forward. What if Bill Gates gave in to fear of failure and never pursued his vision of putting a computer in every home? I hope this post gives you some things to think about in your life. In conclusion, here is a quote from Pete Zarlenga who said, “Action conquers fear”.

The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid? – Psalm 27:1, Holy Bible, KJV