HOW TO TRANSFORM FEAR INTO MOTIVATION

Failure is always on everyone's minds, creeping in with fear and anxiety. It's hammered in  from all directions, making it hard to accept. Yet, embracing failure is key to finding success, even if it holds one back at times.

You might remain in familiar routines, clinging to your comfort zone, and making excuses to avoid the possibility of failing. Therefore, most people tend to opt out of opportunities for growth and advancement, using isolation as a shield against potential setbacks. Even when people muster up the courage to try new things, the fear of failing hangs over them like a dark cloud, dampening their efforts.

According to the statistics of the US Bureau of Labor, 75 percent of startups fail in the first ten years. Experts at Harvard Business Review suggest that instead of ignoring fear, there are so many leaders who have chosen to understand it and learn from it, transforming it into fuel to improve their performance.
Arianna Huffington in her book, 'On Becoming Fearless', explains that fear cannot be eliminated but you can reach a point where it no longer governs or stops you from trying new things, taking risks, and starting over to be happy. She assures that “fear is a very primary reaction, making the decision to move forward, despite it being an evolutionary decision that transcends our animal nature.”

Although in the Lean Startup methodology, it is said that it is important to fail quickly and frequently, no one wants to do it because it means many things, the possibility of going bankrupt, attracting social stigma, losing your livelihood, and so on. The trick is that failure is part of the process and not the final result. 
HOW TO TRANSFORM FEAR INTO MOTIVATION
Here are some tips on how to internally strengthen yourself, which is crucial, and then expand outward to translate that inner strength into professional advancement: 

1. Accept Fear and Move On.

Accepting fear is the first way to overcome it, then confront it as stated by Guy Winch in an article in 'Psychology Today'. It is real but it is better to fail and recover than not try. Arianna Huffington in her book ‘On Becoming Fearless’, says it is important “to focus all your efforts and think about the positive result.” 

2. Differentiate Your Fear of Failure.

According to an article in the Harvard Business Review, Foster Mobley and Matt Brubaker, founder, and CEO of an American leadership development firm say, within fear, there are different ones, “the financial one, the fear of finding investors, opportunity cost, those well used can lead us to be more persistent in following our objectives and aggressive.” However, if entrepreneurs' fears are more about “the potential of their idea or their personal ability to develop a successful company, they begin to be less productive and end up being paralyzed which is caused by overanalysing.”

3. Observe Your Emotions and Control Them.

An article in Harvard Business Review advises, “Awareness of emotions allows us to anticipate their impact on thoughts and limit their effects on our decisions and actions.”

4. Use Your Fear to Your Advantage to Solve Problems.

For example, some fears related to ideas can provide important signals that more work is necessary. Rather than repressing or ignoring these signals, they can help entrepreneurs eliminate their weaknesses and flaws.

5. Learn.

You can use fear very positively by learning more things that help you to not fail.

6. Look For Support.

The fear of failure can also lead one to seek support from mentors and fellow entrepreneurs.

7. Accept Failure When it Comes.

According to Justin K. Brady in his article for Harvard Business Review, if you do not accept fear, you cannot grow, nor do you tolerate it in others, making it even more difficult to accept new failures.



Failure is inevitable when trying new things. How you manage and learn from it is what leads you to success. How are you going to react next time something goes wrong?

By:                                                           
Carla De La Vega and Revathi Sreejith

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