Fear: Your Own Course-In-The-Box
by Don DeRosa
Anything I've ever done that ultimately was worthwhile initially scared
me to death. -- Betty Bender
Did you have a jack-in-the-box when you were a child? They’re hard to find
now, but I remember playing with them when I was little. You’d crank the little
handle while it played music, and at some point the top would burst open and
out would pop a cloth clown with a plastic head. Then you’d stuff the clown
back in the box, smash the lid down on top of it, and crank it up again.
As young as I was, I couldn’t help but notice that when it came to jacks-in-the-box,
there were two kinds of kids. The first kind of kid liked playing with the
little toy. He liked the clown, he liked the music, and most of all, he liked
not knowing when that little guy was going to come out. He’d play with it
over and over again with delight.
The other kind of kid hated the jack-in-the-box. This kid thought the clown
was creepy and he found the music unsettling. And most of all, he hated not
knowing when that clown was going to jump out at him. This kid would play
with the jack-in-the-box a couple times, but the only part he really liked
was stuffing that creepy little clown back down into the box.
What does this have to do with fear? Well, ask yourself this question:
when faced with an opportunity to change your life, do you avoid it because
you don’t know how it’s going to come out? Or do you grab the opportunity
and embrace the fact that you can’t see what’s going to happen?
The fact is, every opportunity for growth – whether personal or financial
– comes with a big unknown. We simply don’t know how it’s going to turn out.
Yes, it could be a disaster. On the other hand, it could be the break you’ve
been waiting for all your life.
Now, I’m not saying we should be fearless. In fact, I think fear has gotten
a bum rap. Fear is a good thing. It keeps us from doing really stupid things,
like driving 100 miles per hour down a crowded freeway, or trying to pet the
alligators at the zoo. And naturally and properly enough, fear makes us move
cautiously when we’re faced with incomplete information – like what the future
holds, or whether we should invest in a business. It counsels us to get as
many facts as possible before we make big decisions. And fear also helps us
get moving – like when we’re facing a deadline.
Unfortunately, too many people let fear paralyze them into inaction. We
let it stop us from reaching our full potential. It’s not so much that we
fear the footwork we’ll have to do. If we break the work into small enough
pieces, there’s little we can’t handle. No, what frightens us is wondering
whether it’s going to work out well in the end. At its worst, fear leaves
us helpless to move forward.
So how can we overcome this fear? One thing we can do is distinguish between
good fear (stress) and bad fear (distress). To let the good stress help you,
set goals, create budgets, and strive for continuous improvement. Get rid
of the distress by letting go of the things you can’t control and by focusing
on revenue. If a particular task scares you, break it into small pieces that
you can handle. Focus on your successes, do the footwork, and let the future
take care of itself.
We all have fears. When it works for us, our fear provides us with motivation
and energy. When it goes amuck, though, it can bog us down so completely that
we can’t move. If we can change the way we approach our fear, we may find
ourselves rewarded with riches of all sorts. One thing’s for sure, though:
if you don’t turn that crank, you’ll never find out what sort of surprise
is in the box.
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