A while ago, I asked the question, ‘What would you do if you knew you couldn’t fail?’ on social media.
It got a really big response, as many of my friends and colleagues started thinking about things they would really love to do, but for whatever reason, hadn’t done, or weren’t doing.
It wasn’t always about fear of failure. Sometimes these responses were fantasies, such as being able to fly, winning an Olympic medal or visiting Heaven.
Very often, though, these were things people had been ‘meaning to do’ for a long time, but it was never the right time, or other things had got in the way.
Learning to play a musical instrument was a popular one. I’d like to think that some of these old dreams may have been dusted off and put into action as a result of the post.
[Danielle, I hope you can forgive me if Simon starts playing the trumpet!]
And I think this is a particularly interesting question to ask yourself when you’re running your own business.
Perhaps there’s an offer you’ve been thinking about developing for ages, or a type of client you’d really love to work with. Maybe you’d like to run your own teacher training course, start speaking at conferences, or move away from one-to-one teaching and develop a different business model.
But somehow, you keep finding reasons not to do it.
What would you do if you knew you couldn’t fail?
Fear and failure
A great number of the answers I received were indeed situations where the only thing holding people back was fear.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I fully recognise that anxiety can be a very real and paralysing thing, and saying ‘the only thing’ is in no way meant to minimise that.
But there are a lot of different aspects to fear.
For many people, it was fear of how others might judge them, as too full of themselves perhaps, or as selfish or greedy.
For others, it was fear of making a mistake, or not doing a good enough job.
And I see these kinds of fears coming up all the time with freelance language professionals.
Someone might have years of experience and a great idea for a new course, but they’re terrified that nobody will sign up.
Or they know that they could be charging considerably more for their services, but worry that people will think they’re greedy or getting above themselves.
Perhaps they want to start sharing their expertise more publicly, but they’re worried about being criticised, making a mistake or looking foolish.
Fear is a natural and extremely useful reaction. It helps to keep us safe.
However, these kinds of fears are not anything that we were born with. No toddler worries about being seen as a show-off. We would never learn to walk in the first place if we worried about how often we were falling down.
But somewhere along the way, we’ve acquired these fears, and every time we listen to that little voice telling us not to do something in case we fail, we’re reinforcing the fear and making it stronger.
Basically, we’re telling that part of our brain responsible for protecting us with the fight-or-flight response (the amygdala) that it’s correct in its assumptions that public speaking, putting ourselves out there or whatever it is that scares us will actually kill us.
Which, of course, it won’t.
Dealing with fear
The only way to deal with this kind of fear is to challenge these assumptions and, in the words of Susan Jeffers, Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway.
This probably shouldn’t mean signing up to do a TED talk straight off the bat if you have a fear of public speaking.
If you over-face yourself in this way, it can actually be another sneaky Troll trick to make sure that you ‘fail’.
But doing something on a smaller scale, that stretches your comfort zone without leaving you completely exposed? Absolutely.
For example, if you’ve been putting off launching your own teacher training programme, perhaps the first step is to run a small pilot with a few participants.
If you’re terrified about putting yourself out there on LinkedIn, perhaps you could start by commenting on other people’s posts or sharing something useful with your existing network.
Or if approaching a corporate client feels like a huge leap, you might begin by talking to someone who works in that sector and finding out more about the problems they need help with.
You don’t have to do the scariest possible version of something to start making progress.
And remember, this is all about what you would do if you knew you couldn’t fail.
I’m not a fan of rollercoasters, and I’m perfectly happy to live my life without ever getting on one.
Maybe I would feel a huge sense of satisfaction afterwards at having overcome my fear. And maybe I’d just feel like throwing up.
But if there’s something you would really love to do, and you know that it’s fear, rather than lack of desire, holding you back, then ask yourself if you want to stay trapped by that fear.
What would you do differently in your business?
I think this question can be particularly useful when you’re feeling stuck or uncertain about the direction of your business.
For a moment, forget about whether your idea will work, what other people might think, or whether you’re sufficiently experienced or qualified.
What would you actually like to do?
Perhaps you’d like to work with a completely different type of client, create an offer that makes better use of your time, or become known for a particular area of expertise.
Once you’ve identified what you really want, you can start thinking about how to move towards it.
Of course, in real life, we can’t guarantee that things will work out exactly as we’d hoped. And running a business involves making sensible decisions about how much time, money and energy we’re prepared to invest.
But that’s very different from automatically dismissing an idea because it feels frightening.
You can assess the risks, decide how to test your idea on a small scale and learn from what happens.
And if the answer to whether you want to remain trapped by your fear is no, then gently start taking baby steps towards your goal.
Because life is too short to be dictated to by your amygdala.
Want to feel more confident running your business?
If fear of failure, self-doubt or your Inner Troll are stopping you from doing the things you’d really like to do in your business, I’ve brought together some practical resources to help.
In my Feel more confident running my business Resource Centre, you’ll find articles and videos about challenging unhelpful beliefs, recognising your expertise and developing the confidence to make decisions and take action.
Explore the Mindset and Confidence resources