Is the fear of failure in business holding you back?

Please don’t let fear of failure stop you from starting a small business or from buying an existing business.

I am convinced the biggest thing that stops people from going into business is ‘The Fear of Failure’, this is usually dressed up as ‘I don’t have the money’; ‘I don’t have the time’; ‘I don’t have the experience or tallent’; or ‘I’m not very good at selling.’ But in reality these ‘excuses’ are no more than fear dressed up. Look a bit closer and delve a bit deeper inside your thoughts and I’d be willing to bet that a stronger reason always emerges to the top ‘FEAR!’

Other comments that people say are “I’d like to start a small business but I don’t know if there will be enough people that would buy my product.” Or “I have a mortgage to pay and a family to feed and I don’t know if I could make enough money to live on.”

All the above obstacle to starting a small business are all about fear of failure and, whilst fear is designed to save us from physical harm, such as an attack by a grisly bear, it will be holding you back unnecessarily. The primal fear of an animal attack is a good thing, but the fear that prevents you from doing things that you want to do are not.

So if the fear of failure is what is preventing you from starting a small business you will need to overcome this and use some positive thinking. This fear is usually broken down into two halves:

 - If I fail I will be a loser and others will look down on me.

 - If I fail I will lose all my money and my home.

Let’s take a close look at these two…

If I fail I will be a loser

You will only be a loser if you tell yourself this, whereas in reality you are not at all. Most people will admire your spirit and hold you in higher esteem than you might think. I know when I bought my last business people would say to me how they admire what I have done. Of course if your business were to go wrong you might not feel good about it, but it is all about what you tell yourself, as to how you will feel about it. So tell yourself a different story and you will feel different.

If I fail I will lose all my money and my home

You might well lose the money you have invested within the business if it fails, but if you set the business up in the right way in the first place, like incorporating your business, you will protect your personal assets, so you will not lose all your money nor your assets. The only exception here is if you have secured any of your assets on any loans you might take out to set the business up.

If you never try you will never know and something I heard Sir Richard Branson say “You don’t learn to walk by following rules. You learn by doing, and by falling over.”