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How to handle Pessimism & Fear of Failure on your business journey

This reddit post inspired me to talk with my team about the feelings of pessimism and fear of failure and discuss what's their take on it.

I personally experienced those along our journey, and I still experience them to this day. When I started everything was unicorns and rainbows and every idea was destined to be THE ONE.

It's different after a few years. You realize how hard it is. Most of your ideas will fail, you'll learn a lot along the way, expectations will change and pessimism and fear that you are never going to succeed might start creeping in.

But that's normal. It's a healthy process. The typical curve of learning. We agreed that doing business is about self-reflection and self-awareness and most importantly working on yourself. Knowing yourself.

And yes, building a successful business will take a lot of time. There is huge uncertainty. It's tough. But it's supposed to be like that.

You have to learn to enjoy the journey, to love the uncertainty, and to be at peace with the stress. And from my experience, that requires a few things.

The first one is to fill the basic needs because you are on a marathon, not a sprint.
That might be having a decent income to feed yourself and your loved ones. So taking client might make sense even if it's not that appealing.

Second, you need to work on yourself. Understand where the fears come from and learn to face them, accept them, live with them.

If you want to do business you really have to learn to love the journey as it is. With all the ups and downs. It's a challenge, but a beautiful one that will help you grow as a person.

I would love to hear how you handle pessimism and fear on your business journey.

And check out our discussion if you are curious to hear more in-depth chat about this topic

  1. 2

    I really like the Reddit comment saying that he always tries to turn the "what if it won’t work" into "what if it will work".

    Such a simple hack but it might make the world of difference.

    1. 2

      Yes, that's definitely a strong one

  2. 1

    Mental preparation is very important, just as it is for athletes. You are going for a 12-round fight against a massive guy who punches really hard... You have to be ready for those heavy blows. When we expect a tough fight we brace ourselves and we don't feel as much pain.

    1. 2

      I love metaphors, this one says it pretty well. You need to train a lot upfront, studying your opponent, train getting the hits. And even after that you go to the ring and may lose. And the cycle starts again, train, rest, learn, fight.

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