The Sounding Board

We’ve all heard that phrase…’the fear of success.’ What exactly is that? How in the world could you be ‘afraid’ to be good at what you do? Isn’t that what every person wants? To be good at what you do and highly sought-after/in demand? Isn’t that what we work so hard to achieve in our professional lives? Most of us do, right?

But you know, there’s another well-known phrase at work here too…be careful what you wish for. You just might get it! What do you do when you ‘get’ what you’ve been working so hard at for so long? I can tell you from experience…pressure. Pressure to keep doing it, and doing it even better. That, in turn, can cause fear. Not so much fear of success, but fear of failure. Fear that you’ll get what you’ve been dreaming of all along, but you won’t be able to hold on to it. Someone will figure out you’re just a fluke. A one-hit-wonder, so to speak. If you’ve ever had a taste of that fear, it can affect future endeavors and make you wonder if you really want to succeed at what you’re doing. You know that if you succeed, the next step is to feel that pressure to perform….to prove you’re worth your own success.

For others, the fear of success may not be pressure-related. It may indeed be a fear of failure…finding out you really don’t have what it takes to succeed. It’s nice to be able to daydream about what it would be like to have, do, feel, experience, but what if you try & you don’t have what it takes? Can you live with that? This can block your path to your own success as well.

Women especially seem to have a fear of their own success. Succeeding will change life as you know it. It will change your relationships, your view of yourself, where your place is in the world you’ve created for yourself. That can be intimidating to some. There will always be those influential people in your life who will cheer you on, no matter what. But unfortunately, there will also be those whose own jealousy and fears will cause them to look for the slightest imperfection and seek to drag you down with them. That can be a scarey proposition, especially for women. After all, most of our lives revolve around the relationships we have with others. We are natural-born relationship builders. Changing the relationships in our lives, especially by our own power & decisions, can be a terrifying force to come to terms with.

So. How do you deal with fears about your own success? To be honest, I’m still working on this one. I do know that you have to identify what it is you’re really afraid of. Are you afraid you won’t measure up? Afraid you won’t be able to handle the pressure to continue performing? Afraid of what others will say or do? Not sure how you will handle the changes success may bring? Determining what exactly scares the beejeebers out of you will give you the first step in coming to terms with your fears of success.

How you handle it from there is entirely up to you. What works for me or the next guy, might not work for you. Where you go once you identify the core fears behind your success-avoidance is a question you’ll have to answer for yourself. I’m not in your head, so I can’t tell you what to do from there. (Heck, I’m still trying to figure that one out myself!) But I can tell you that until you figure out what’s really driving your fear, you’ll never overcome it.

For me, I have found that the best way to deal with my fears of success are to simply ignore that little negative voice in the back of my head. I don’t listen to it anymore. I can’t. If I give it an ear, that little negative voice will scream so loud it will drown out everything else. It will convince me that I don’t really know as much or can’t really do my job as well as I think it can. Before long, that fearful voice will have me avoiding work, avoiding the phones, and looking for any possible way to passively sabotage myself. Eeek! That would surely destroy all the work I’ve done to this point. I don’t want that to happen! So, I ignore that negative little voice. I’ve even been known to tell it where to go a time or two. And when it starts getting too loud, I take a bum day. I go out to the lake & spend the day enjoying the water & peaceful tranquility of natural beauty. It helps to remind me that I have work to do if I want to continue enjoying impromptu bum days at the lake. That’s enough motivation for me to re-focus on the positives & ignore the negatives. If I fail, I fail. Big deal. There are worse things that could happen. With that attitude, I can pick up where I left off and keep working…which is how I maintain the level of success I currently am lucky enough to have.

I love my success. I truly do. I challenged myself to do something & I did it! There’s no way in you-know-where that I’m going to let my fear of my own success taint that. So, I do what I can to cope with my own fears and keep going.

What are you going to do about yours?

Back in my corporate days, I dreaded Mondays. Hated them with a passion. It meant I had to go back to work. Yuck! Another 60 hours of bustin’ my hump for a paycheck that barely covered the bills. What fun! Not.

I realized yesterday why I love being a business owner. I realized why I truly love the work I do & the way I’ve set up my business. Why? Because I have no fear of Mondays anymore. It’s just another day now. And it’s that way because “I” made it that way. I set up my business to fit the life I wanted to live.

You know all those late night infommercials where some guy in a polo shirt & too much stage make-up is telling you that you can have the life of your dreams if you just buy his biz in a box? He shows you images of people boating in some exotic tropical getaway, or driving some fancy sports car that cost more than mine & my daughter’s entire college education combined. You know those infommercials. We’ve all seen them.

Well, I didn’t buy a biz in a box. I’m not yachting off some tropical island somewhere. I don’t take exotic vacations to someplace warm & sandy. I do, however, have the life I’ve always wanted. I don’t fear Mondays. I don’t hate my job. I have plenty of time to spend with my family. I can take time to just goof off on the jet skis on a sunny Summer day when the lake is quiet ’cause everyone else is working their 9-5. I can lay in bed until I feel like getting up. I can work in my jammies & Tigger slippers the entire day with a fuzzbutt curled at my feet. I can wake up, decide I don’t feel like working just yet, throw on my favorite old jeans & worn-out boots & go trail riding with my best buddy, Smokey.

Sounds like I live a life of leisure, don’t it? I don’t. I probably put in close to 60+ hours a week into my business. But my point is that I choose which hours I work & which hours I play. I get to decide when & how I’m moved to do whatever I choose. Why is my life like this? Did I find some magic bullet that suddenly made my life perfect? No. My life is far from perfect. I still deal with everyday issues; bickering teenagers, moody clients, misplaced mortgage payments, family commitments I wish I could bow out of, business decisions to be made at every turn, etc. BUT, I’m in control of when and how I tackle those everyday issues. And believe me, juggling homeschooling 3 kids, getting a 4th ready for college, taking college courses myself, running a business, AND building a new farm house, there’s always something that has to be dealt with every waking minute of my day. But, like I said, I control the when’s and how’s of dealing with it all.

How did I do that, you ask? (If you could see my daily list of “to-do’s,” you’d REALLY be asking how! ) It’s simple really. Well, maybe not simple in the actual doing, but simple in the theory behind what I’ve done. The theory? Put systems and processes in place that allow you to work on your own terms. As business owners, we have the blessing AND the burden of making all the decisions about our businesses ourselves. Why not make the choices that are best for your business AND best for you & your personal life?

For example, I only take on the clients I want to work with. I don’t take on anyone I don’t “click” with right off the bat. Why? Because I don’t care about my revenues? Because my business is so successful I don’t have to deal with bad clients? No. I do it because I’m in this for the long haul. I’m a client snob because I want to make sure that in 10 years, I’m still loving what I do & the clients I do it for. I do it because I can’t stand the fear of Mondays. I just refuse to compromise that just to make a $1.

Likewise, I have very clear policies and procedures for how I work, what work I do, and the timeframe I do it in. Why? Well, obviously because businesses run smoother when there are systematic approaches to business functions. Why spend an hour a day gather phone messages, faxes, emails, etc. to figure out what I need to do for all of my clients for the day/week? Doing it that way will invariably mean something gets missed somewhere. Then I’ll have an unhappy client somewhere, which means more *stuff* on my to-do/keep in mind/fire to be extinguished list. Eww! Who wants to do that? Instead, I have a process in place so that all client requests are sent in one form, to one place, where it’s easy for me to track & keep up with it.

Every business owner can tell you, having a successful business will take up more of your time than you ever imagined in the beginning. It’s like a child who never grows up & always needs your constant supervision & guidance. So why complicate that with poor planning or sporatic processes? If you design your business processes, whether that’s your accounting system, or your operating policies, or your filing system, or your customer service processes, or whatever, plan it so that it works for YOU - personally AND professionally. And don’t be afraid to say “You know what? I hate doing this. I’m going to find someone else to handle this for me.” (That’s what great virtual assistants are for! )

The point is that since YOU are in charge of making your own business decisions, YOU get to decide how to handle your business functions so that they compliment your work style & life choices. It won’t make your life suddenly perfect overnight, but it will give you more time & space to enjoy the good side of being in business for yourself.

Your creativity isn’t just a talent…it’s a life force all its own. It has its own needs, wants, and desires. For that reason, those of us who have built a business around our creative talents know how important it is to nurture the muse in each of us. Press it to perform without proper care & attention and you’re sure to *block* your creative flow. Not something you want happening when faced with the very real issue of business deadlines. As business owners, we are at the mercy of our muse, but at the same time have to learn to control it.

So….how do you do that?

Simple, really. Romance your muse like you would a lover, after all - your relationship with your muse is far more intimate than any other relationship you could have. It knows everything about you…even things you might not consciously be aware of yourself. Now that doesn’t mean you have to take it out to dinner & a movie (unless that’s what your muse demands) but it does mean you have to think about your muse and what it needs to be happy and productive. Just like you get to know a lover’s likes and dislikes, you should be just as aware of your muse’s likes and dislikes.

Does it need peace and quiet, or music playing so loud the neighbors 3 streets away need earplugs?

Does it encourage your creative flow to work early in the mornings? Late into the night?

Do certain life events create havoc in your relationship with your muse?

What environments/sensory input brings out the best in your muse?

These are things you should know about your creative self if you want to avoid blocking your creative process. Just like knowing your lover prefers red wine over white, or candle light over electric can help you craft the perfect dinner date, knowing what moves your muse will help you craft the perfect flow to your creative process. It’s an investment of your time and attention that can truly make the difference in whether or not your muse is willing to cooperate with your business deadlines!