The 3 Ways In which I Overcome My Career Fears
(and life fears as well)
This article was first published in HackingUI. If you’re into product design and development, I really recommend that you also check out the magazine, where I publish the rest of my articles.
Ok, so let’s start with a question:
How many times have you had one (or even all) of the following thoughts?
- ”What if my boss/client won’t approve my work?” (near future fears)
- ”What will be of my career in a year from now?” (not so close future fears)
- ”What will be of my career when I’m 50 years old?” (far future fears)
- “Wow, that person is awesome! I wish I’d be that good, but I’ll never be!” (General comparison fears)
We, as hard workers in the tech industry, face a lot of fears. But how do we control those fears? And how can we make sure that we do not get overwhelmed and basically freeze in place by fear?
Well, here are 3 practices I follow to conquer my design career fears, and the same goes for everything in life. I hope that by sharing them some of you will benefit from them.
TL;DR: — on the bottom of this post.
#1: I turn my fears into inspiration and challenge
I’m a product designer, and sometimes when I see some amazing design of another talented designer, and I fear I will never be as talented. But here’s the thing: There’s a thin line between being intimidated to being inspired.
If I look at some top notch designer’s work, I can aspire to be as talented, and gain a lot of inspiration from it. I can just as easily be intimidated and overwhelmed, but it’s a matter of choice, and I choose to be inspired.
I actually see it as a challenge to get better at what I do and someday to reach the level of the design I just saw.
“If you can figure out a way to wrestle fear, to push you from behind rather than to stand in front of you, that’s very powerful!” — Jimmy Iovine From “All in a Day’s Work” — track #5 on Dr. Dre’s new album — Compton.
Another thing is, if you really stop and think about most of the works of others that you were impressed with, you will come to the understanding that, in most cases, you really don’t want to do what they do.
For instance, when I, a UX designer, see an amazing illustration, I sometimes say to myself “I wish I would have been so talented” but then I realize: “but I never wanted to be an illustrator anyways.”
This drops the whole intimidating aspect of it.
#2: I practice not being jealous of cool stuff other people do, and don’t make any excuses to myself of not doing what I dream of doing
You know that feeling where you see an amazing article or case study or app or anything anyone created and you say to yourself — “wow I really wanted to do something like that myself! How come I didn’t think of that earlier?” or even “Wow this isn’t fair, look how much shares/likes he got and I didn’t! I should have gotten more than him!” Well, yeah, some people do amazing stuff. But instead of being jealous of people, I actually try to see how I can change that initial feeling of jealousy into admiration!
We need to just purely respect and cherish the great, hard work of others, and kill any feeling of jealousy.
I try to practice that, and I believe it makes me a better, more relaxed person.
By the way, some say you can get rid of the feeling of jealousy altogether.
“When you find yourself comparing your life to the lives of others, turn to the moment in front of you and find ways to appreciate it.” — Leo Babauta (on “The Heartbreaking Cruelty of Comparing Yourself to Others”)
To put it into practice here are a few tips for whenever you experience jealousy:
- Say to yourself: “Wow, that’s very nice, I appreciate that”. It sounds stupid, but When you ‘talk’ to yourself you begin to understand the stuff you think in a clearer way.
- Connect with the people who’s work you saw with a message of gratitude. Tweet at them, send them a message, or leave a comment if you can on their work. This may even start a very helpful/productive discussion and build a relationship with those people.
#3: I know that any action done with fear at heart is meant to fail
Some writings inside religious books from different religions talk about fear as a source of bad outcomes, and encourage us to take actions without fear at heart. I try to remember this always, say it with me out loud:
Any action done with fear at heart is meant to fail!
Think about it for a sec. When was the last time you did something, and fear that slowly took over, and it came out bad?
I can find a few examples from doing sports, where I wanted to do some sort of stunt and when I doubted myself even for a second before performing the stunt — I ended up failing. I think that this is true to everything in life.
So that means you have to have confidence in yourself when doing anything in life. And if you’re totally new at what you do — just fake it ‘till you make it. And if you haven’t watched Amy Cuddy’s must-watch TED Talk, here it is:
So if we drop fear in our actions, what can we have? The answer is faith. Faith in ourselves. That for sure will derive better outcomes from our actions.
“The mind is everything. What you think you become.” — Buddha
To sum it all up
- Any action done with fear at heart is meant to fail. So be confident when you do stuff and if you find it hard — just fake it ‘till you make it! (Must watch the TED talk, if not now than bookmark for later but do not forget to watch this).
- Turn fears into inspiration and use them to push you from behind rather than to stand against you (Must watch this speech, if not now than bookmark for later but do not forget to watch this).
- Practice turning and feelings of jealousy into admiration and even pay gratitude.
And the last thing I would like to mention here — is DO. Just do! The world respects doers. If you have something you would like to do, a skill you would like to acquire, a passion you would like to chase — go for it! Because the fear of starting something new is way easier to deal with than the regret of missing out on something you wanted and could have done in this short life.
So.. it’s your turn — how do you handle your career fears?
If you liked this piece:
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- You might also like my post on How to Avoid the Clash of Marriage & Career.
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