Jumping into the unknown — How to deal with the inner fears
Monday to Friday at 8 am, the alarm rings (for forever in your head) and you realize that it’s time to get up and prepare for a new day. From the moment you turn off the alarm your day starts: the sound of the coffee machine, the smell of fried bread, reading the news, preparing for your meetings, thinking of what problems you will solve that day, that’s how, without realizing, your life becomes a routine.
This routine can last 3, 5 or 10 years. For someone can last a lifetime, who knows, it depends. In a happy scenario, you’ll want to do something for you, for your dreams and that is the moment when you wake up and discover that you want your life to be different and, suddenly what was once your dream job, is not anymore.
Well, from the moment you decide that you will quit your job for working on your things, till the time you actually sign that paper, hundreds of questions will pop-up into your head.
- Am I prepared?
- Am I doing the right thing?
- Will I ever be hired by someone again?
- Is my idea that good?
- Will I survive?
- Will I succeed in what I dream?
And so on and so on…
But, because there is always a but, if you don’t follow your dream, you will be left with the “What if” question in your head. What if I jumped then? No matter what, living with regret is not fun at all.
Everyone is concerned at a certain point with the fear of giving up on something, or changing something in their life. We can talk here about small things, like fear of public speaking or big things, like quitting your job or moving to another country.
Imagine there are two boxes: one with dreamers and one with people who live their dreams. While I was writing this article I realised that I am currently part of the first box, working from Monday-Friday, from 9–5 at a publishing house. I have to admit that I am afraid of letting go, I am afraid that I am not good enough and, most of all, I’m afraid to fail — sure there is more, but I can’t figure it out now.
Last days I was reading a book - “All Marketers are Liars” by Seth Godin and I read something that has remained in my memory:
“We believe what we want to believe, and once we believe something, it becomes a self-fulfilling truth”.
I intend to change the way I see myself, but this may take time, and until then, I prefer to surround myself with people who’ve managed their fears or transformed them into friends. Like the guys from Socialinsider — the startup I work for.
Fear is part of the journey
There were days when the three of them were working from Monday-Friday in a company that at one point offered them everything (or that’s what they believed then, or this is what we all think at one point, or who knows). Things changed the day they realized that as a team they can make something different, they had a lot of ideas, so why not. One day they decided to quit their jobs, and became entrepreneurs. Thoughts, sleepless nights, ideas, worries, joy, all of these came in the package, but as they say they would do that again at any time.
“At times I think that I should have done it earlier, but then I realize that I started it at the exact moment I was prepared for it, and it couldn’t have happened in any other way.”
Adina says she definitely would take it from the beginning and this experience also helped her as a human being. “And again. And again. And again. With a small adjustment. It’s not a beginning — it’s a beginning with Adina transformed. Once you understand this process, every beginning is a new chance to become a better person, founder, human being.”
The boys share the same opinion.
For Andrei this experience has been such a lovely journey, and he is grateful for having the chance to go down this road.
“At times I think that I should have done it earlier, but then I realize that I started it at the exact moment I was prepared for it, and it couldn’t have happened in any other way. This is quite a paradox — it didn’t feel like I was ready at the time, but looking back it seems I was but didn’t know it (there’s no ‘aha’ moment in the present for this, just a post factum ‘aha’ one).”
When I asked Răzvan, he answered without thinking that he would take it from the beginning anytime. “For me staying in that state I was in would have been the real failure. Stagnation in a state where you are not a fit is way worse than jumping without a parachute into the unknown. You’re going to learn to fly anyway, you’re just unsure of this yet — if this metaphor is permitted by the final editor of this text.
Everybody I talked with in that period that made the jump said they wish they would have done it sooner — and this proved to be true for myself too. But probably everything happens at the moment it needs to — and for a reason — to quote every over-used saying out there.”
As I said in the beginning, being an entrepreneur is not an easy job. Fear is something normal and it is also part of the journey. The new chapter comes with thoughts and worries of all sorts.
“The edge of your comfort zone is the place where you push-fail-iterate and this way you grow. So by not failing enough, I was not growing.”
When I talked to Adina about this she said that the first two years of startup, fear of failure was her companion. She is still dealing with the fear of not moving fast enough sometimes, but she knows that every fear has its lesson, so all she has to do now is accomplish her goals.
“My friend and my enemy at the same time. It was the impulse that lifted me up in some moments, but the reason why I was continuously tired.
It had a significant presence in my life with the biggest cost:
- health
- relationship
- productivity
- money — If you wear an ‘ I need your money’ badge while you meet with a potential customer, guess what? — that customer doesn’t want to work with you.
Fear of not moving fast persists. Some days, my mind is stuck with thoughts like: not enough trials per week, not enough traffic, not so many orders in the last week, not moving fast with my daily tasks.
Maybe this fear hides other unknown fears. I don’t know. What I know for sure is that I feel its pressure. The good news is that this fear no longer scares me. When I feel its pressure through my body, I try for one moment or two to calm down my mind, to understand its origins and to be grateful for being part of life. Every fear has its lessons. Pay attention to them. You’ll realize its goals later.”
Andrei was also dealing with fears, but the main one was that he wasn’t good enough. It was coupled with what is called the imposter syndrome. “It made things hard to accomplish or envision as I was putting myself down for not owning some minor technical aspects.”
Răzvan makes no exception to the rule. When he jumped out of a job into startup life, he was dealing with the fear of the unknown. Besides that, he was thinking that the runway was going to finish before he’d start on the adventure — these are exactly his words:
“The fear of the unknown I guess. Jumping out of the nest, cutting the umbilical cord. Worst case, you fall and break your neck. Spoiler alert: this never happens.
I spent some time thinking if I was afraid of failure — this for me has been an unconscious fear for a long time — leading to some pretty risk adverse state of mind. So I was pretty successful in my life, but most likely that’s a sign of failure on my part. The failure being that I was not doing things at my edge. The edge of your comfort zone is the place where you push-fail-iterate and this way you grow. So by not failing enough, I was not growing.
One of the fears was that the runway was going to finish before we’d start on the adventure. One way of putting it is like going into the mountains for a great vacation of 2 months with just three days food or that you run out of food before you learn to cook it yourself. This led to some pretty erratic behavior — we felt the money pressure for a while but then, our preparation met with some good luck.”
“Thinking of WHAT & WHY you’re running a business helps you reconstruct your fears.”
Talking to them, I realized I was dealing with all those fears (Oh, God), and as a natural consequence, I wondered if their fear had passed or will ever pass.
Adina: “Most of the time, yes. Others not. Or they become something else. Talking with the customers helps you pass up the fears.
Thinking of WHAT, WHY you’re running a business helps you reconstruct your fears.
With every startup success, fears go away. Once you master the WHAT, WHY and HOW of your life, the fears fade out. This applies to every aspect of your life, not only to the startup life.
Andrei: “Fears have the nice habit of going away once you shine a spotlight on them. This one creeps up at some times, but now I have the tools to shine the light on it and see it for what it is. And just like that, it goes away.”
Răzvan: “Every little success along the way melts a bit of fear. The fear goes away by doing some conscious actions and some unconscious ones.
Fearless people make the fear go away probably with some unconscious actions, all being in their mindset — but I cannot say that much about this because I am not one of them.
So I had to do conscious actions to make the fear go away: celebrating every little success, thinking a lot and daily about brave people in your life in courageous situations or expecting 3x the best outcome out of every case. I truly believe that you can never be ‘too optimistic.’ Reading, talking and thinking about people who made similar life choices helped a lot. How did that change come about to them / how did they react / why couldn’t I do it / of course I could — the type of train of thought. Those tools helped — but to help they needed to be used, loaded consciously from memory very often, maybe daily.”
Their story — three’ s company - can be your story or even my story :) Let your life surprises you, face your fears and let yourself be carried away by the waves.
I won’t lie, to overcome your fears can be difficult, also being an entrepreneur can be hard, stressful and frustrating sometimes, but for sure it is rewarding. There is no better feeling than seeing a product (YOUR product) you’ve worked so hard to create being appreciated by your clients.
If you are wondering if it is the perfect time to quite or to let go, let me tell you that there is no ideal time. If you want to do that unique thing which will make you happy, if you have an idea, if you’re going to change something, well, now is the right time :)
Stop dreaming, close your eyes, picture your life and jump.
