A Short Meditation on Fear

Fear is a powerful foe. It creates a dangerous form of complacency.

A fear of conflict prevents the kind of candid conversations that allow you to identify and overcome obstacles. You don’t want to bring up the uncomfortable issues that might anger your clients or alienate your prospect. So you say nothing, knowing that nothing will change and your problems will only worsen.

You fear asking for commitments because your prospective client may refuse your request. You also fear that the commitment you need will somehow be perceived as bothersome or inconvenience your client. So you don’t ask for the commitments you need and opportunities are lost.

You fear that other people will think less of you, so you go along with the crowd. You don’t buy the company line because the cool kids, the cynics, will tear you apart. You fear your sales manager will think you’re weak if you ask for help. You fear your prospect will think your not sharp enough if you tell them you don’t have the answer to their question. So you allow fear to paralyze you.

Fear is your enemy. You’ve been fighting fear your whole life. You’ve retreated from many battles, allowing fear to take ground without a fight. But you’ve fought fear and won many times, the times when what you were fighting over was important to you, when the stakes were to high to allow fear to win.

Your battle with fear continues. Each day you are faced with the choice to engage fear, face it, overcome it, and take back the ground that was stolen from you. You decide whether or not you have the conversation that needs to be had or allow the problems to worsen. You decide whether or not to ask for the commitment that you need and that you know will move you closer to your goals. And you decide whether or not you will let the opinions of others determine the quality of your life and the quality of your results.

Fear is a powerful foe. Until you face it. In the moment you face it, fear is dissipated, vanquished, and destroyed.