Business

If You Wait for It, It Won’t Come – (Fear of success)

Written by Igor K

You just have to be patient and wait for it. Good things happen to good people if they are patient enough. You just had to go through this rough patch and the Sun will shine again. Bad things happen but there is always a light at the end of the tunnel.

And what if that fucking tunnel is 256 miles long and ends with the brick wall?

Strategy of waiting is a first sign of the fear of success

You saw the potential. You did the research. Yes…there’s definitely money in it. But wait…what’s this? Hmmm…this shit could backfire. And this one also…I don’t know…it seems a bit too goddamn risky.

That thinking got you where you are now.

But it’s not all your fault. You’ve been raised to think like that. They all taught you that you should find yourself a “decent” job and stick with it. What they didn’t mention is the inflation rate, taxes, average increase in market prices for common and essential goods and the fact that your salary will increase at the speed of quantum leaps thus probably never.

Couple of years later and you’re in deep shit. What now? How’ll you make your way out of this mess?

Stop wasting time. Yes there are risks and there will always be risks. You can get hit by a freakin’ car tomorrow. But that doesn’t mean that you won’t cross the street, right?

So why is it then that you have stage fright every time you start thinking about some new opportunity?

It’s because of your deeply rooted belief system. That shit is extremely important to us. We cannot live without it and it’s not about the religion per se. It’s about the sum of principles you’re living your life upon.

What is happening inside your head when you feel this stage fright?

What is your favorite football team? Let’s say that mine is the one you don’t like that much and we start to discuss and argue about which one is more effective and which one has better chance to win the championship next year.

You would bite my head off sentence after sentence, regardless of the fact that my arguments have a more solid foundation. It is clear to everyone in the room that my team will definitely kick your team’s ass. On some level you know it too. And yet you’re not moving away from your stance. You will even start to make things up in a desperate attempt to prove me wrong.

Let’s test this.

“The ball and the bat cost $1.10. If you know that the bat is $1 more expensive than the ball, how much is the ball?”

Even if you’ve heard this before and saw the answer, your instinctive answer will always be the same and wrong. It’s not $0.10. It’s $0.05. That’s the right answer. And now you’re struggling trying to prove me wrong.

What is the point of all of this

The point is simple: you have to collapse your obsolete and pretty much wrong belief system and allow new stuff to break inside. You need to stop waiting for a miracle because it won’t come.

What you have to do is to snap out of it and start seizing the opportunities when you spot them. You have to take the risks and expose your senses to the success and fear.

Are you feeling discomfort when you are thinking about quitting your 9-5 and start on your own?

Expose yourself to that discomfort. Study it. See what triggers it. Which part of the general idea makes your body to start pumping cortisol instead of dopamine and serotonin?

Because when you first see it, you’re overwhelmed with the sensation of happiness and proudness. You can actually see yourself on the top of the World. And then, in one point, something triggers the entirely wrong set of hormones. Your brain starts dispatching stress hormone cortisol as a response to imminent threat.

Somewhere between the lines there is something that scares the living bejesus out of you. Find out what it is. Write your emotions down when you analyze new opportunity. You are after all — same as everybody else — a visual animal. You need to see it in order to understand it. 

About the author

Igor K

Former detective, now entrepreneur with the passion for applied investigative journalism, profiling, personal development and business analyses.