Self-Devpt. Nuggets™

Fear is a terrible thing. It negatively affects your state of mind, and at a point even your physical well being. It is my considered opinion, that the biggest mistake anyone can make is to allow fear to control her, or influence her decision making.

In fact I believe your ability to master your fears is a crucial requirement for achievement of success in any area of endeavour.

I’m not perfect. Nobody is. But we must all strive for perfection to make the most of ourselves. And one key step you can take towards achieving that end is to develop mastery of your fears.
You can experience fear in different forms. Maybe you fear making mistakes, or criticism, or embarassment. Fear has many faces.

In business the ability to manage your fears can determine how well you progress.

You may have a perfect business plan, adequate capitalisation, qualified personnel and so on. But if you and/or those you work with let your fears dominate your thinking, and reasoning, you’re likely to end up with big problems.

Below I explain 3 different ways fear can limit your ability to succeed in business.

1. Intelligent Risk-taking For Progress

There’s alway an element of risk taking in business. Things may not always work according to your plans. Quite often you’ll have to adapt them to suit the realities that you encounter.

If you’re fearful however, you’ll delay taking action in a timely manner. And that could affect your business progress negatively.

2. Negotiating Profitably With Clients/Customers

When business is good and you feel you have a lot of money in the bank, the thought of losing a potential client at the negotiation stage may not be so terrifying.

Afterall, you’ll tell yourself it’s not like you don’t have clients or money in the bank.

So most people tend to feel more comfortable in negotiating to get profitable prices or fees.

However, when business is tough and they feel they need money, the same people let the thought of losing the client or customer make them accept unprofitable fees or prices.

3. Managing Employees For Improved Productivity

Do you have super employees you know you can always depend on to produce needed results?

How do you treat them? Do you reward them well, or do you let the fear of offending other employees keep you from doing so?

On the other hand, do you have employees who give you problems that you are afraid to let go of because you don’t want to be called “wicked” or “bad”?

These 2 scenarios occur fairly often. Business owners who harbour fears of this kind ultimately delay taking needed action until the situation deteriorates.

In the former scenario, the poorly rewarded high performers get demoralized because they see others earn the same as they do, despite making minimal contributions.

In the latter, problematic employees become a disruptive influence in the workplace, and may even encourage other employees to emulate them.

In either case, the business suffers. All because the owner or decision maker lets unfounded fears keep him from acting assertively to reward employees in a way that sustains or even boosts morale.

Train Your Mind To Repel Fear

The human mind can be rather treacherous sometimes. It can make us forget who we are whenever tough times appear.

But you can train yourself to always remember, no matter the situation you find yourself, that you’re the same person, with the same ability to deliver results.

Burn that truth into your subconscious!

Doing so will eliminate fear in any form from your mind, so that it will not (or no longer) permit fear to influence its functioning.

And you’ll find that you can take risks intelligently, negotiate competently, and manage employees effectively, regardless of your personal circumstances.