Career Fear Is Normal

What are you afraid of? Losing a job? Not getting a new one?  Afraid that your workload will never decrease? Or, you'll be stuck with a boss or a co-worker you cannot spend one more minute looking at?

Career fear is normal. You wouldn't be human without it. And, although we wish our careers were fear-free, they aren't. As a result, we worry, we feel uncertainty, and we experience fear far more than we'd like to admit. In other words, we make things harder than they have to be.

What do you do with your fear? Do you tackle it head-on or do you run away? Do you trust that you can handle your fear, or do you avoid your fear and pray it will just go away?

Wouldn't it be nice if your career could just get better without your participation? Nice wish, but it will not happen. Overcoming career fear is a process.  It requires work. The good news is that it will lead to personal and professional growth. 

So, How Can You Overcome Career Fear? Follow These 3 Steps Below.

1. Expect To Be Afraid

You cannot avoid what is inevitable. Feeling fear is a part of being alive and a part of career achievement. If you take on a new goal, you should expect to be afraid. If something is about to change in your career, and you know about it, you should expect to be afraid. If you do not know where your career is headed next, you should expect to be afraid. I have clients tell me that they should not be afraid. I ask them why they would put so much pressure on themselves; to expect something that unrealistic. I tell them it is better to expect fear so they can manage it better.

2. Decide To Not Let Your Fear Stop You

Everyone is afraid in the beginning. Whether you are tackling something in your career that you wish was not happening to you, or you have decided to take on a new goal, you will feel afraid. Now it's time to decide what control your fear will have over you. Will your fear paralyze you or motivate you to move forward? Deciding is important because it's the step where you take your power back. You move from victim to victor simply because you have decided that staying in a state of fear is worse than dealing with it.

3. Face Your Fear

What you resist persists, so stop resisting. You get past fear when you move past it, not running the other way. What are you afraid of? Write it down. Say it out loud. Share your fears with the people in your life. Get your fear out so it no longer has influence over you anymore. Then, write down the steps you will take and start taking them. One at a time.

If you wait to be fear-free before you act, you will be waiting for a long time. Get moving now and your fear will fade away.