Five fears you must drop right now if you want to be successful

“I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.” – Nelson Mandela 

You wouldn’t be surprised to know that there are more than 100 kinds of fear and phobias in the world. Starting from physical forms like fear of darkness, fear of open space to non-physical ones like fear of loneliness or failure. Most people are brave enough to live through their fears by either facing them or avoiding them. Even if people don’t recognise them at all; they are always present in their subconscious mind. What’s not great about having fear is that they stop you from living life fully, going that extra mile, scaring us to death and making excuses for not doing greater things. In my experience, here are the top 5 fears you should drop right now if you want to be successful in life:

1.    Fear of Failure: fear of failure is a pretty common one; most people have it since teenage. It arises out of social conditioning absorbed through environment, parenting, school, peer group. Fear of failure stops us from trying new things; it blocks our pathways of opportunities and alternatives. It can also arise out of early massive success where one feels failure will make them look bad. How so ever, it is a bigger roadblock in success and earning a fortune in life because it stops you from taking risks and exploiting opportunities.

2.    Fear of judgement: “Judge ye shall not” is a phrase for the enlightened people or those with wisdom. We live in an environment where there will always be people to judge you, above you or under you, at home or outside. A lot of people have this fear of judgement by others. It’s like they measure their life with others yardsticks and benchmarks. It can be observed in simple activities. As simple as not wearing red lipstick at work if you are a woman or a pink shirt in the office if you are a man. If you want to grow big in life just let go off this fear. Though it’s a silent fear, it’s a creepy one. It stops you from leveraging your potential and trying out many things you could be good at.

3.    Fear of rejection: If you have ever stopped yourself from asking a question or answering a question in public? If you have ever said “yes” when you wanted to say “no”, you would relate with this. Fear of rejection runs deeper into your psyche because you are conditioned to believe you need to please others, you need to be likeable or you need to be right. A lot of people struggle with fear of rejection, however, to generate opportunities, ideas and have a path of success and fulfilment, you need to embrace rejection. Be open to criticism, to be different or to be rejected.

4.    Fear of change: we live in a world that is changing too fast. However, many people dread change. Change is uncomfortable, so they defer it or detest it. They miss out on opportunities, new challenges, new environment because they want to be in their comfort zone. To give you an example; One of my old clients won’t let go of a non-performing sales-head for months. When I asked the reason he said, the guy is working with me for 5 years, he knows all my clients, systems and processes. Firing him would mean finding a replacement and teaching someone from scratch, upsetting the entire sales team and system. Do you know the cost of this fear? A few lakhs a month. Fear of change though looks very small when compared to the task at hand to allow it, however, it can hamper your growth immensely.

5.    Fear of Missing out: #FOMO as it is called these days. The newest addition to the list but it’s a very serious subject in the light of online social platforms. It arises when you constantly feel you are missing out on information or things happening in your circle. So while it looks very refreshing or entertaining to catch up on social media, it’s wasting quite a few productive hours for you. If you are someone disciplined and focussed and do not touch social media during office hours, you might be spending time on it at night or late evening. The cost you are paying is the time you could have relaxed, replenished, slept or updated yourself to excel in life. A lot of people are battling FOMO without knowing it. Success is an outcome of focus on goals and actions. If anything is taking away your focus, it has repercussions far more than you are accounting.

The good news is you can overcome any or all of these fears. It takes a simple process of analysing at what level you have it, acknowledging it and finding a way to let go.

Do you have any of these fears, does it look difficult to address it all by yourself? Feel free to reach out to me on #linkedin or saritachauhan.in@gmail.com