This is so true in business!. What I have found working with my business and also with several of my clients is that fear keeps us stuck. Fear of embarrassment, fear of failure, and fear of success all rank in the top reasons people avoid change. When you are afraid to make a mistake for fear of looking bad, foolish, stupid, or incompetent, it is very hard to try something new. Especially if you did well in school, you have learned that it is wrong to fail or to make mistakes. Change requires that you be willing to do both. Yet fear of embarrassment is hard to overcome.
Recently, I changed my business name, and believe me it was one of the hardest decisions that I have made. I had to let go of the old that wasn’t working. Now I don’t regret it one instant and I am finding new and exciting things are magically happening. To remain the same in anything in business or in life itself, can be very powerful insisting that it is easier to keep doing what you have been doing than to change direction.
Brené Brown in her most recent book “Darling Greatly” talks about courage. “It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause;who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly.”
The courage to change is a very real courage. The courage to leave behind the known, safe, and livable for the unknown and therefore less safe is a powerful sort of courage.
Go for your dreams. Jump in, take the dive and don’t look back. As Maya Angelou stated many times, “Having courage doesn’t not mean that we are unafraid. Having courage and showing courage means we face our fears”
Be your awesome self!
