We all feel fear now and then, but sometimes it can have an extremely negative impact on your life. If you allow it to rule you and stop you from doing what you want, it has become your master, and it will ultimately prevent you achieving your dreams.



Fear can be paralyzing. While it stops you from moving, it also will keep you stuck in a situation that you do not like. You feel damned if you take action, and damned if you don't.

However, we need fear to a large extent. It is a natural reaction to a potential threat. But what is a real threat and what is a perceived threat may be two totally different things. In the world of your career, you may discover that what you perceive to be a threat is actually something else. Here are some steps you can take to reclaim control and move forward into a more fulfilling way of life.

1. Change Your Focus

Very often we get stuck is because we fear the worse. The perceived threat makes us hold back and cling to the familiar, even if that familiar thing is unpleasant.

When people consider changing to a different career, they often think they will fail, or they won't be able to do it or that they will lose money and get into debt. If these are the thoughts you are having, then you are focusing on the negative.

What you focus on tends to become reality. So, choose instead to expect good things and to see the positive in every situation. Start telling yourself that you are strong and capable of handling all situations. Focus on finding solutions instead of seeing only the problems. Visualise success and believe that you can get there.

This does not mean that you blind yourself to potential obstacles. However, you will now be focused on finding ways round them instead allowing them to stop you, and you will be able to plan your way ahead realistically.

2. Examine Your Fears

What is it that you are afraid of? Have a good look at your fears, and then decide which are realistic, which are irrational and which can be just problems that need solutions.

Most of the things that we fear don't actually happen. Are you really going to give up the chance of a fulfilling career because you were scared of something that probably wouldn't have happened anyway?

Which of your fears are actually conditioned thinking? Do they come from values you truly believe in, or from outmoded social viewpoints, or parental doctrine that no longer has any relevance in your life? Are they someone else's fears, rather than your own?

Look at the worse that could happen. If what you fear really came to pass, what would you do? Would you survive? Looking at them this way might enlighten you to the fact that they are not really as bad as you thought. So what if it doesn't work out? You will learn something valuable, and will have probably created a stepping stone to something even better. Remember, there are no failures, only feedback.

After this analysis of your fears, you may find that you can dismiss a few.

3. Do The Thing You Fear

Have you heard the saying, "You have nothing to fear but fear itself"? It is not the thing that you fear that is stopping you, but the fear itself.

Fear is no more than a feeling. It is not a reason for not doing something.

Some people think that if they fear something, then they should not do it. This is not true. Fear is very often the other side of the coin from excitement; what you fear is often the thing you most want to do.

Going ahead and doing the very thing that you fear is usually the best way of clearing your fear. Once you have worked your way through it, you may find that there was nothing to fear in the first place.

This does not mean doing something reckless or stupid. But it does mean that you no longer allow your fear of changing career to stop you having the life of your dreams.