Being "Scared" - MAC004

In the corporate world, being scared leads to self-doubt and inaction.  If your goal is to advance your career, those are two attributes that you CAN'T let take over.  So, when you find yourself feeling fear, what then?  The strongest tools against fear are knowledge, confidence, and action.

If the fear is based in change and the unknown, knowledge is power.  When you encounter this fear, educate yourself.  Your new found knowledge will give you the confidence to overcome the fear and resolve the issue.  Learning more about a situation gives you options --> Options give you confidence --> Confidence allows you to face the coming change without fear.

If your fear is the fear of failure, you only need to realize that no one succeeds 100% of the time.  A classic anecdote is about how many times Edison failed when working on the lightbulb.  The key takeaway is that failure is normal.  What's more important is how you react to the failure.  In Edison's case, he learned from each failure and used that to improve subsequent attempts.  When you do fail, what can you learn from it?  How can you use this knowledge to better handle the situation in the future?

There are very few actual dangers in a corporate office.  The fear that you experience is generally self-created.  Other than a few exceptions, most people experience the same fears.  You only need to be less scared than everyone else to be seen as confident.  Regardless of the source of your fear, the key is to not let it control you. 

When you ARE scared, lean on your network.  Start with your friends -- people who will support and encourage you.  Let them remind you of times when you had a similar fear and how you worked through it in those instances and were able to overcome them.  Work with your peers -- sometimes just knowing that you aren't facing a fear alone is enough of a confidence boost.  Reach out to leaders and mentors -- someone else who has gone through a similar situation can coach you on how to resolve the situation.

Sometimes, it just comes down to taking a risk -- a calculated, strategic risk.  In those instances, lean on your strengths.  Personally, I'm a fairly low-risk, conservative person, but rationale thought and logic are skills that I rely on when facing a fear.  I can trust those strengths to help me make a sound decision, thus reducing my fear of making a "wrong" choice.  Or maybe your strengths are centered on understanding people, use that to get a better read on how everyone feels about the situation.  Understanding the emotions of the team can lead you to a choice by consensus, reducing your individual fear by knowing that everyone else is just as invested in the result.  By focusing on your strengths, you'll have confidence in yourself and can focus on the situation more than the fear.

If you can identify the fear before you have to face it, something else you can do is practice facing it.  One of the most common fears is public speaking.  Practicing -- rehearsing your speech and knowing your content -- is something that you can do to ease the fear -- it won't necessarily go away, but it will make it better.  If you can practice other situations where you expect to face fear, you will make those situations better even if the fear is still there.

No matter what tool or strategy you use to conquer a fear, the more you do it, the easier it gets.  Eventually others will turn to you when THEY face fear.  And THAT'S how you get ahead, by being a leader in troubling situations.

If you're struggling with a fear or want to help someone else who is, participate in the community.  You can access it by going to ManagingACareer.com and clicking on the link.

Are you looking for a career coach? If you reach out to me via the contact form, I will arrange an introductory session where we can talk about your career goals and how I can help. If we're a good fit, we can schedule regular coaching sessions.