Members of my career mentoring site will tell you that I believe that self-confidence is an important key to your life and career success. If you want to become self-confident, you need to face your fears and act.
Let me ask you a couple of simple questions. What scares you? What have you done to overcome this fear?
Take me for example. For many years, I would tell people that I wanted to start a consulting business. Yet I never actually started it. When people asked why, I’d tell them things like, “The time isn’t right;” “I’m really busy on this project at work, and I can’t leave them in the lurch;” “I haven’t put aside enough money to make the break.”
All of these reasons were more or less true, but they masked the real reason for quitting my job and starting a business. I was afraid that I’d fail. Failure meant a lot of bad things: lack of income, loss of self-confidence, loss of face and others’ respect. I was afraid of all these.
Finally, the pain of not doing what I wanted to do allowed me to overcome my fear of failure, and I took the leap. I quit my job and started my consulting business. That was in 1988. Over the past 25 + years it has morphed into a coaching, speaking and writing business, but I’m still at it.
Once I took action and made the leap, I realized that I was in control of my destiny. The simple act of taking the action necessary to start my business, led to the other necessary actions to make it a success. One small action led to many other small actions that allowed me to put my fear behind me. I was too busy working on creating a successful business to be worried about failing.
I’ve made a lot of mistakes over the years, but I’ve chosen to learn from them instead of letting mistakes dig up old my old fear of failure. In his timeless classic, Think and Grow Rich, Napoleon Hill says “every adversity, every failure and every heartache carries with it the seed of an equivalent or a greater benefit.”
Over the years, I’ve chosen to look for the opportunities and benefits in the problems and setbacks I’ve encountered. That’s what you need to do too.
So, as we close out 2015 and begin looking to 2016, I urge you to put your fears behind you and go bravely forward toward your dreams next year. You’ll probably make a few mistakes and have a few setbacks as you go forward. Don’t fear these mistakes and setbacks. Learn from them. Use them to find new and better ways of getting what you want. Remember this simple message: action cures fear. Make it your mantra in 2016.
Your career mentor,
Bud
PS: I write this blog to help people create the life and career success they want and deserve. Now I’m going one step further. I’ve created a membership site in which I’ve pulled together my best thoughts on success. And, as a reader of this blog, you can become a member for free. Just go to https://budbilanich.com/join to claim your free membership. You’ll be joining a vibrant and growing community of success minded professionals. I hope to see you there.
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