On my Business Owners and Entrepreneurs – Transition Guy Podcast I interviewed Brian Lovegrove, bestselling author of The Abundance Factor and Unleash Your Fear. We discussed how fear prevents you from moving forward and how to control that fear and stop retreating into your comfort zone.

Fear is the number one thing that prevents us from moving forward

If you let it, fear will control you. Focusing on things outside of your control will paralyse you. When you focus on things that are out of your control you feel helpless. That usually leads us to pursue something that gives us a level of comfort. However, that level of comfort may not be the best thing for you. We might eat more, scroll more on social media or sit and watch mindless TV just to feel in control and comfortable again. It is important to regain your control outside your comfort zone or find a new control.

Evaluate your performance on a regular basis.

Keep a journal and make sure that you’re on track and moving forward. At the end of the day – review it and ask yourself: did I get done what I needed to today? Did I stay focused? Was I moving in the direction I wanted to go? This helps you stop and analyse when you go off track. Keeping a journal of what you are doing and needs to be done also allows you to adjust and continue to move forward in the direction you want to go.

We have to adapt

We have to come up with the level of routine. For example, home working. There’s there’s pros and cons to working from home. The pro is you’re 10 feet from the office. The con is you’re 10 feet from the office. People struggle with the distraction of things like laundry, they’re not staying focused on taking the actions they know they need to take in order to achieve the level of results they want in their life.

Create boundaries

Understand that whatever happens you can handle it. You’re here today. You’ll be here tomorrow dealing with things. That’s certainty. Don’t build your certainty on external factors. Bring that level of certainty back inside you, because when the level of certainty is high and it’s based upon what you can control and what you can generate, then nobody can knock you off your certainty. It doesn’t matter what’s going on around you. We tend to make things bigger than they are.

Dealing with uncertainty in business

The reality is we’re going forward. Always look for those new opportunities and ask yourself how can I continue to serve my clients in a new way? Moving forward may be different. Fear is a lack of certainty. It is important that you develop that internal level of certainty within yourself. Fear is about what will happen in the future. Focus on what you can do today. What action can you take today that will move you forward?

Don’t let fear overwhelm you

Don’t be afraid that the goal or the vision is too big. You can find a starting point. Work out what you can do today? What activity can you do today that is going to lead you in the direction that you want to go. Forward progress is happiness. We get a level of satisfaction from forward progress. You see you are making forward progress. You feel good about yourself. Your attitude changes.

Fear can have positive intent

Primarily the purpose of fear is to keep us safe. We’ve been programmed by our subconscious that fear is a bad thing. Understanding fear and the subconscious will help us move forward. Fear is the number one thing that holds us back from truly achieving the results we want in our life. Make success inevitable for you and your team. Taking the fear out of your team means you will have a better performing team.

To listen to the Transition Guy podcasts where I interview a range of well known figures within the business world
If you want to discuss meeting your fears head on and turning them into positives – get in touch
Remember, failing to learn is learning to fail.