One of my biggest regrets and one of my biggest strengths is that I traditionally tend to always play it safe. This works great for employers because they know that I always make an informed decision and (probably) won’t just run away when the going gets rough. It also works against me in that I tend to be set in my ways and extremely conservative in how I approach problems without enough information.
This isn’t maintainable.
The world has changed too much to give into that lack of risk-taking. I am an aggressive person by nature, but I also acknowledge the faults of this aggression. It makes me rash and reckless, something I can’t afford with a family. It’s easy to see what you do wrong when you look for it rather than what you get when you make things line up. I let myself get beat down and reduced to the point this was an acceptable compromise.
Unfortunately, this isn’t acceptable anymore. We live in a world where not taking risks leads to more of the status quo, and the status quo isn’t pretty. Why do you think so many people have to hustle just to make ends meet? Something’s wrong unless you take the lead. You have to first face your fears, then you have to harness them and shape them, all so that you can take risks. Otherwise, you lose control of any path towards progress.
Face Your Fears
While the concept of facing your fears may be cliché, it doesn’t mean most people understand the implication. Fears are ugly, nasty, horrible little holdups you need to address, but how? A fear of spiders is rooted in a fear or potential that may or may not actually exist. Most spiders lack venom, and even the ones that have it just want to avoid you (in most scenarios). If you live in Australia, it’s wise to have a sane fear of a spider, elsewhere, you’re probably just wasting brain cycles worrying about a tiny arachnid that wants as little to do with you as you want to do with it.
Part of facing your fears is understanding them. Why are you afraid? Is the fear rational? What exactly are you actually afraid of? I had a true phobia of losing my teeth, but how likely is the fear to manifest if I brush regularly and follow every hygiene practice? If it manifests when I do everything I can, what’s the point of worrying? The deeper you dig into your fear and the more you understand it, the more you understand its limitations and its origin.
You have to face your fear to see it and understand it. Break it down. If you can answer the previous questions, the fear takes on a more concrete shape which limits its affects and form.
Are you afraid of being broke? What happens if your company goes under due to something you can’t control? Do you stay awake at night worrying about this, do you plan for it to happen, or do you just accept there are things you can’t control? That’s going to depend on what the root of the fear is.
Harnessing Your Fears
Once you understand your fear and can face it, you can harness it and control it. I’m deathly afraid of being broke; it’s why I write and what haunts me at night if I don’t. I use this fear to force myself to work harder than I thought possible.
Any day now, my job could disappear. Even though at my current company, this was less than likely a few months ago, now, any job may or may not exist depending on where in the falling chain of dominoes it lies. I was scared, now I’m just motivated. Turn that fear into something you put behind you as you run towards your goals, not something you run from scared.
Once you learn to fully assess your fears, you can see that it has certain strengths and weaknesses. Leverage the strengths to push yourself and use the weaknesses to control it. A spider is a small arachnid which may or may not have venom. Do you assume they all do or just let the one’s which can’t harm you go along?
Shaping Fears
I don’t care as long as it isn’t a widow, a brown recluse, or a hunter spider. Even then, a widow is fine as long as it’s away from me and not a threat, hunter spiders are fine outside (though we kill them indoors due to their aggression where I live), and brown recluses are destroyed on sight. The fear has real limits and a real understanding. I don’t fear the spider, I really fear the venom.
The web weaving spiders kill the mosquitoes and are harnessed for my benefit because I understand the fear and allow it to work to aid me. Before it was a fear of spiders, now it’s refined into understanding I’m afraid of their venom. If they don’t have venom, why should I fear them?
My fear of being broke helps me because I know that I need to do something different. I invested heavily in oil before the last major crash, now I have nothing to show for it but some wisdom. That fear of failure makes me learn to work with technology, writing, and many other skills which mean I’m more agile if my job disappears. Harness your fears and turn them into a catalyst for positive change rather than something which rules your life.
Taking Risks
Children take risks they don’t understand, and they usually work out due purely to resilience and luck. As an adult, that probably doesn’t work for you. The wrong financial decision means you’re homeless. A bad investment means you’re broke. Taking risks gets scarier as you get more invested in your lifestyle and as you have fewer resources to bail you out. How many missed paychecks away from homeless are you? In light of that question, I harness my fear and can take risks knowing that the answer is “depressingly few”.
What are you afraid of? Once you can answer this, you can understand how to harness it. What can this fear do for you? I’m afraid of being broke, so how can I address this fear? The easiest way is to take calculated risks to diversify my assets. Don’t just go invest in penny stocks for the sake of risk taking, but if you’re worried about being broke, consider doing work or projects which may not pay off to try opening a new door.
You need to take risks. If you see a spider and it doesn’t look venomous (and you aren’t in a completely foreign place), what do you do? I’d let it be unless it was aggressive. This risk means I don’t waste time and effort on stopping something which might actually help me.
Maintaining Control
I’m a rounding error away from my greatest fear. It would eat at me if I gave into my fear, but I don’t. I can’t afford to let it do so. The fear can rule me, or I can rule the fear. You have the same choice for you fears, but you have to start by facing them first.
What are you going to do with your fears? Do you control them or do they control you? I can worry about my teeth falling out or I can make sure I brush 2 times a day, floss once, use mouthwash 3-4 times, not eat anything that’s going to harm them, etc., and never have a preventable issue as my dentist advised. I don’t need to brush 8 times because that’s a waste and counterproductive.
You can either give in or you can transcend the fear. It’s fine to be afraid, but make it do something for you instead of blindly instill panic. Transmute your fear from panic into passion. Leverage the adrenaline and fear to move yourself towards your goals.
Image by Pete Linforth from Pixabay