How to Erase the Fears that Limit Your Income and Impact As an Entrepreneur
All entrepreneurs experience fear. And while there are certain fears which most entrepreneurs have in common, there are others which are totally specific to the individual.
For this reason, there are literally countless fears that an entrepreneur could have.
In this article, we’ll look at some of the more common entrepreneurial fears.
Some will be obvious to you, while others may come as a surprise. Here they are:
Fear of failure
Fear of success (this one is just as common as the fear of failure)
Next we have the fear of being successful and then losing everything you’ve worked for
Fear of you and your business being judged, criticized, and rejected by others
Fear of sales and marketing
Fear of not being able to get enough clients or customers
Fear of doing social media
Fear of doing video
Fear of tech
Fear of networking
Fear of being seen as an impostor, also known as “impostor syndrome”
Fear of raising your prices
I could literally go on and on, but these are the fears that I see the most often in my work with clients in my business coaching program.
When Entrepreneurial Fears Are Most Likely to Arise
Before we unpack the many ways in which fears can hold you back in your business, I want to address when entrepreneurial fears are most likely to arise.
The short answer is that they arise at every stage, from just starting out, to 7, 8, 9, and even 10-figure earner.
Fear is a normal part of being human, and it’s a normal part of being an entrepreneur.
The most successful entrepreneurs you can think of experience fear on a regular basis, and of course the newbies do, as well.
The important thing is not to let it hold you back. Or, more specifically, to notice when it is holding you back, and then strategically tap it away so that you’re free to move forward toward achieving your goals.
Okay, now let’s look at the different ways in which fears can slow down, limit, or even completely prevent you from achieving your business goals.
As an example, let’s look at the fear of failure. This fear, like most others, can hold you back in all kinds of ways. Also, there are different types of fear of failure. Some people have an overarching fear of failure which is quite paralyzing. For others, their fear of failure is specific to individual goals, action steps, or projects. And of course, the fear of failure can have many different causes.
How the Fear of Failure Prevents Success
So here’s how the fear of failure can become a self-fulfilling prophecy, preventing you from having a successful business:
It can cause an inability to set goals
If you are able to set goals, it can cause an inability to take action on achieving those goals.
It can cause you to engage in unconscious self-sabotaging behaviors, such as “forgetting” to call back an important prospect or business contact, thereby losing the opportunity to do business with that person.
It can cause a lack of confidence which can show in how you conduct your business, making it less likely that people will want to hire you or buy from you.
Procrastination
Unconscious self-sabotaging behaviors
This is just a short list of the many ways in which fear of failure can prevent your success. There are, of course, many others.
And it's not just fear of failure that can prevent your success in these ways.
Any fear can hold you back like this, whether it’s fear of success, fear of tackling the tech side of your business, fear of marketing, or any other entrepreneurial fear.
How Erasing Your Fears Frees You to Make the Income and Impact You're Truly Capable Of
Now that we've gone over exactly how fears hold you back in your business, let's look at the ways in which releasing your fears will help you achieve your goals and realize your dreams:
You'll become able to see opportunities that your fears once blinded you to
It will become easier for you to take action on your goals
It will stop the cycle of procrastination
You’ll radiate confidence in everything you do
You’ll become more attractive to prospective clients and customers
Your belief in yourself and your ability to achieve will grow
Tasks that once seemed impossible to tackle will suddenly seem doable, and in some cases, even easy
You’ll find it much easier to market your business
Sales will become natural, authentic, and effortless
You'll make the income and impact you're truly capable of
Entrepreneurial Fears Don't Arise in a Vacuum
Now that we’ve looked at the types of entrepreneurial fears, how they can prevent you from succeeding, and how removing them will help you achieve your business goals, let’s unpack the causes of entrepreneurial fears.
It’s important to identify the roots of your fears, because if you don’t find and remove their roots, you either won’t be able to release the fear, or if you do release it, it will likely grow right back, because the thing that caused it is still there.
Here are three examples of the kinds of roots that common entrepreneurial fears can have:
1. The Fear of Having a Successful Business
In this first example, a woman is afraid of having a successful business because she unconsciously associates success with rejection and loss. The reason for this is because when she was in the 3rd grade, she got the starring role in her school play, and her best friend became jealous.
Because of her success, her friend rejected her, and not only that, she convinced other kids to exclude her from their activities.
This caused her to become convinced, at the age of 8, that being successful would put her at risk of losing the love of the most important people in her life.
2. The Fear of Losing Everything
Next we have the fear of losing everything being caused by a previous experience of loss. The experience of losing everything you’ve worked hard for can cause an outlook of, “Why bother even trying to succeed, when it could all be taken from me at any moment?”
3. The Fear of Marketing
And then there’s the very common fear of marketing, which, in this case, is caused by the belief that marketing is inherently unethical. People who have this belief and resulting fear of marketing find it very difficult to get the word out about their business, because they don’t want to feel like they are unethical, or be seen by others as unethical.
How Much Is Fear Costing You?
How many potential clients or customers are you missing out on because of your fear of failure?
How many clients or customers are you missing out on because you’re afraid to do what it takes to get the word out about your business?
How many potential clients or customers are passing up your products and services because fear is infused in your marketing and sales efforts?
Chances are, fear is costing you a great deal.
The good news is that any fear can be erased. As I described above, it's just a matter of identifying the fear, figuring out what the roots of the fear are (usually a traumatic experience of some kind), using EFT to heal those roots, and then using EFT to erase the fear itself.
For step-by-step instructions on how to do this, click here to read My Two-Step Process for Using EFT to Release Fears.
PLEASE NOTE
When doing EFT on your own, if you aren't able to completely heal the issue you're working on, so that when you think about it, it no longer causes any stress, emotional pain, anger, or fear, I can help. Click here to schedule an EFT session or free consultation.
BY HEATHER AMBLER
Heather Ambler is a California based EFT practitioner and mindset coach. Through her private practice and online programs, she’s helped over 14,000 people in 81 countries heal the pain of losing a loved one, recover from trauma, release fears, erase limiting beliefs, increase confidence, and achieve goals. If you could use some help with any of these things, click here to schedule an EFT session or free consultation.
