“Have no fear of perfection – you’ll never reach it.” ~ Salvador Dali

Tell me something, what are you afraid of?

You might say, “I am afraid of things like height, confined spaces, rollercoaster rides, walking down dark alleyways or strange neighbour Jim.” You would be right in all of those things of course but I would bet most of you will not think about the daily fears you face, the things that stops you from setting real goals and taking action towards changing your life to what you truly deserve.

When we think about fear, we tend to think about the big scary things that we do not come into contact with very often. Fear has become a four-letter word in our society because we applaud those who are perfect and brave and thus hide our fears from others when in reality people have many fears in common and in fact we might be more courageous if we choose to accept what fears we have and how we can manage them. In this article today we will be talking about the different kinds of fears and how we can manage them so that they do not control us.

What are you afraid of when it comes to making changes?

The biggest fears for most are fears of disappointment and fears of vulnerability.

Many of us fear disappointing ourselves and others lest we should fail at whatever it is we are trying to change.

Many of us also fear being vulnerable to judgment, scrutiny and ridicule.

Fear is associated with being weak. In society, historical or modern; to be weak would be as debilitating as a handicap. Yet, experiencing fear is very much part of life.

We need fear to survive. Fear keeps us safe, it keeps us from walking alone at night through a dark alley way, it keeps us from touching the burning kettle so we do not scald ourselves. It is a necessary mechanism for survival, unfortunately we do not always know when to turn it off.

Fear does however remind us that we care about our goals, if we do not have enough fear then I guess we are simply not reaching high enough. It means that there are no challenges in our path for we always reach for the low hanging fruit.

Instead of looking at fear as something to avoid maybe we should look at it as a daily reminder that we are working towards goals that mean a lot to us, that we are being challenged because it is only when we are challenged that we grow.

Fear does not come in just one flavour, our fears vary according the situation and what matters more to us, here are 5 different types of fear we typically experience:

1.Fear of disappointing ourselves

Disappointing ourselves is painful because it lives on forever in our heads. You will be able to recognise this fear when you hear yourself asking the what-ifs:

What if I fail? What if I lose all of my money? What if no one buys my product? What if no one hires me?

No one wants to be disappointed with themselves, you will never know whether the what-ifs will come true but one thing is for certain, you will definitely disappoint yourself if you do not give it a go at the very least. Alternatively, you might have a little fun asking yourself the positive what-ifs like:

What if I make a million dollars in a year’s time? What if my business is a resounding success? What if I have so many job offers than I can manage?

The point is that both positive and negative future situations are out of our control but we can choose to focus on the positive instead of negative.

2.Fear of disappointing others

When you fear disappointing others you might think, what will my spouse think if I fail? What will my friends and family think?

How many of us have had failures and then chose to only let our family know at the last possible minute?

Yet deep down inside we know that the fear of disappointment is only an assumption we make about the people around us in our heads. I mean, you don’t really know what your friends, partner, family are going to feel, think and say unless you are a psychic and even then seeing the future does not always mean that it will turn out as you thought it would. Also, if your nearest and dearest are not going to support you when it counts then you really need to think about the people you choose to be your peeps.

3.Fear of being judged

We hate being judged by others because we believe that our work is great, that our efforts are worth commending but not criticised. Yet, to truly succeed we need to open up ourselves to being judged by others because to truly achieve mastery in anything we must be open to feedback from others.

If think about it, books are reviewed by critics, dishes made by world renowned chefs are judged by critics and consumers, blogs are judged by the readers and by fellow bloggers and let us not even start with the judgements faced by people in the fashion industry!

Most of all we fear being judged by those closest to us. When I first started my site, I was so afraid of what others would think that I hummed and hawed for months! I kept working on my site without telling anyone about it because I felt like it wasn’t professional enough, the writings weren’t insightful and the list goes on and on. I was so scared of what people would say about my writings and my work. Yet, it was actually more freeing when I decided that I was going to put my work out there, accept that not all of my friends and family are going to love it, hear what people have to say about it and then improve accordingly.

You know that you will get naysayers but you will also receive many positive feedback (way more than the naysayers!) that will motivate you to go even further. I am not going to say don’t care about what others say because we all do, we want people to like and appreciate what we do. What I will say however is that not all criticisms will matter and some criticisms when taken constructively can only help you grow.

4.Fear of being vulnerable

Vulnerability can manifest in different ways. Being vulnerable means leaving our armour off when we interact with others, when we share our work and our projects with others. Many of us fear being vulnerable and opening up to others because it leaves us wide open to being hurt.

Being vulnerable and opening up our inner self and our closet demons to others be it strangers or people you know can be a liberation of your insecurities because once again, we assume what people will think when they see our weaknesses and often these assumptions are simply not true nor proven.

Imagine if you met someone of your dreams today and you choose not to pursue the relationship because you are afraid of showing them your weaknesses like your fear of loneliness then you would have missed out on possibly finding your soulmate because this person might have felt the same way you do and may feel at last happy to have found someone who understands them and who trusts them enough to open up.

Being vulnerable takes courage and makes you human; people are drawn to people who admit their vulnerability because it becomes a shared experience.

5.Fear of uncertainty

When you make changes, the outcome is uncertain regardless of how much you plan for it. All of us dislike uncertainty to a certain degree unless it is a pleasant surprise then suddenly it is all ok. When we fear the uncertainty of our future it is because we hate to be caught out, we hate to have to settle for another outcome but the worst thing about the fear of uncertainty is that so many of us choose to not even do anything because we don’t know what’s going to happen and we convince ourselves that the outcome will be a lousy one if it is not what we expect.

When we accept that the outcome is uncertain, we are telling ourselves that we are not perfect and that sometimes bad outcomes can happen to people who work hard. This is called not sticking your head in the sand. By keeping your head above the sand, you can have Plan B or even Plan C. Nothing ever comes out exactly what we planned for anyway so instead of wasting your energy on thinking about the bad outcomes, channel your effort into your contingency plans.

In Conclusion:

The reality is that you will always have fears of one thing or another, whoever says he or she is fearless is either bullshitting or not challenging themselves enough. Being fearful is definitely not a weakness, in fact knowing what we fear is a source of strength. Fear reminds us that we are challenged, that we are growing and that we care enough about the goals we have set. When we start seeing fear as a source of strength and not a source of pain we can start to make the changes we so crave as growing individuals.

What do you fear when you make changes? How have you managed your fears thus far?