Do you sometimes experience a feeling of fear and anxiety that completely paralyzes you when you’re thinking about doing something new in your business? Even though you know deep down how much you want to do it, you just can’t.

Your fear and anxiety are so strong that it makes you procrastinate every step in the way and when you eventually decide to give up, you feel incredibly relieved…

Has this already happened to you?

Have fear and anxiety made you settle with a life or business you aren’t completely happy with, only because you’re feeling too afraid to make the necessary changes? Do you dream small in order to not cause any fear or anxiety in your mind?

If this is the case, then first, don’t judge yourself for it. It’s OK to feel scared and anxious, but it shouldn’t have so much power over you. It shouldn’t hold you back from learning new things, living new experiences, and preventing you from reaching the next level in your business.

In this blog post, I will show you how to make the necessary mindset shifts so that fear and anxiety won’t hold you and your business back anymore from reaching its full potential.

This is part 2 of my limiting beliefs series. Click HERE to read part 1, which is all about how to stop letting perfectionism get in the way of your success.

Other Reads:

• Overcoming Perfectionism: 7 Steps to Silence Your Inner Perfectionist
• 12 mistakes you are probably making that are killing your productivity
• Why Working Long hours isn’t the Answer to Productivity
• How To Stop Procrastination And Start Achieving Your Goals
• Building Daily Habits that Stick: 13 Simple Steps
• How to be Assertive without Feeling Guilty
• The Secrets of the Law Of Attraction

Mindset shift #1: Redefine fear and anxiety

I hear so many entrepreneurs ask the question ‘how can I overcome fear? How can I get rid of it?’ ‘how can I fight it? This however is the wrong question.

Fear will always be there, you can never get rid of it since it’s a part of our brain that gives us the adrenaline to be able to survive in dangerous situations.

It’s just your mind basically telling you to be careful because you’re about to do something dangerous, challenging, difficult or just new.

However, your mind can’t really tell the difference between an actual dangerous event that is happening or just you having fearful thoughts with a vivid imagination. Your body reacts in exactly the same way.

So try to see fear for what it really is, an emotional state of your body.

Stop seeing it as something that comes with a lot of pain in your life, because it isn’t. On the contrary, fear is basically your protecting angel that guides you through life and keeps you safe at all times.

That’s why we shouldn’t ask how to get rid of fear, but instead, we should ask: how can I start dealing with fear and anxiety in such a way that it doesn’t hold me back from interesting opportunities and projects that could really take my business to the next level?

In the book Big Magic of Elizabeth Gilbert, she describes fear with a really cool metaphor. She writes that we should see fear like this crying baby in the backseat of a car when driving this road trip that’s called life.

Of course, the baby is really present since it is crying so loud. However, you should never give the baby the power to make the decisions to go either left or right, stop or continue driving, because it’s only a baby… It can’t drive, it just cries.

However, you can’t ignore it either. If you ignore the baby completely, it will start crying even louder.

So give the baby some attention and say some sweet words, so the baby feels heard and loved, but keep on driving wherever you are planning to go.

So stop fighting the presence of the emotion, but embrace it. Feel and express compassion and love for the crying baby, but never let it take decisions in your business, that’s adult stuff.

Start feeling comfortable with feeling uncomfortable.

Just allow yourself to recognize how you are feeling without any judgment, really hone in, and reflect on the fear you’re feeling. The more you stop fighting the fear and anxiety you are feeling, the more it will lose the power it has over you.

Mindset shift #2: Put fear and anxiety into perspective

In the end, what is the worst thing that could happen? Ok, you fail, and then what? You learn from it, you stand up and try again.

What do you think would be the most harmful to you? Failing and learning from it and doing a better job the next time? Or not trying at all to avoid failure?

Realize that there is no real danger here.

How many times did it happen to you that you couldn’t stop thinking about all these worst-case scenarios when in the end, it actually went great.

Your mind tends to focus the most on the worst possible scenarios.

So next time that your mind is blowing things up out of proportion with its vivid imagination, take it with a grain of salt.

About 90% of the things we worry about, is actually never going to happen.

So why not spend your mental energy on more positive things?

Either you succeed or you learn.

Without taking calculated risks, decisions, and opportunities, you will just stay right where you are without reaching your full potential

Mindset shift #2: How fear has robbed you and your business from moments of growth

I want you to think for a moment what are the things you have been wanting to do for a long time in your business and didn’t because your feelings of fear and anxiety were holding you back. In other words, when did fear rob you of opportunities and success before?

Maybe this webinar or podcast that you are willing to do forever, or a new exciting project that really requires to put yourself out there.

If you think about one goal or project specifically, what is the thing about this project or goal that you are so afraid of? Try to describe this fear as detailed and concrete as possible.

Are you feeling scared that other might judge you? Are you afraid of the unknown? Are you are scared to lose something?

And you are right, you might risk losing something.

But, at the same time, aren’t we always risking losing something?

I mean, you can lose your job tomorrow, even though you didn’t take a risky decision. We will never have full security… right?

But what could we gain by putting ourselves out there and trying new things? A lot. This can translate into new opportunities to take your business to the next level, getting access to new income streams, but also the opportunity to get to know new people and to grow as a person.

Even though the feeling of fear freaks us out, it’s actually something wonderful since it projects us in the future, with different scenarios how a situation can play out negatively without it actually happening.

In other words, fear provides us with the possibility to prepare ourselves for these worst-case scenarios in case they happen. So we can take advantage of this and create action plans to deal with these risks.

So have confidence and faith in your abilities and start doing whatever it is that you’re wanting to do in your business. Give yourself the space to fail. Like really, fail HARD and learn from it!

Because from the moment you genuinely embrace fear and allow yourself to fail and learn from it, a whole new world will open with so many possibilities.

Your fear will no longer have the power over you to hold you back from what you’re meant to become.

The fear will always be there, it will never completely disappear… but you, my friend, can decide what you do with that fear.

Other Reads:

• Overcoming Perfectionism: 7 Steps to Silence Your Inner Perfectionist
• 12 mistakes you are probably making that are killing your productivity
• Why Working Long hours isn’t the Answer to Productivity
• How To Stop Procrastination And Start Achieving Your Goals
• Building Daily Habits that Stick: 13 Simple Steps
• How to be Assertive without Feeling Guilty
• The Secrets of the Law Of Attraction

Let’s Chat:

What have you been willing to do for ages in your biz but didn’t because of this fear and anxiety you are feeling? Let me know in the comments down below!