5 ways to be more fearless and do the thing!

New year, New me, blah blah – we’re over that now right? There’s various theories on the dates we give up on New Year’s resolutions but basically, as humans we suck at sticking to things. That’s why we did an Oh for Food’s Sake podcast episode on ditching the resolutions and replacing them with intentions.

This year, I intend to be more fearless. Why? Because that’s how we make change in the world. My world is all about the Food industry and wow, does it need a shake up. It’s an industry I absolutely love but on many occasions it’s nearly broken me. And right now I see it nearly breaking a lot of my colleagues, clients and friends.

What do I mean by fearless? Well, I certainly don’t mean never having any self doubt, never getting nervous or never being uncertain. But what I do mean is to feel all over those things and do the thing anyway. For many of us that might be speaking up in a situation where we may normally stay quiet or attending an event we would usually enjoy.

By feeling the fear and doing it anyway, we stretch outside of our comfort zone and that’s where great things can happen.

But how do you become more “fearless”?

Here’s 5 ways to get you started:

?1.?????? Fearlessly embrace your strengths

It is all too easy to spend our time berating ourselves for our weaknesses or focusing on what we can’t or haven’t achieved but by harnessing your own unique strengths and focusing on what you can do, you’ll find this increases your confidence. Not sure what your strengths are? Ask those around you, they can usually see the things we can’t see in ourselves.

Working with your strengths is something I focus on with both 1:1 clients and when I am coaching teams, as it can not only boost your confidence, it most definitely boosts your performance.

2.?????? Fearlessly welcome challenges

Pushing yourself outside of your comfort zone is essential to building your “fearless” muscles. It doesn’t just have to be at work either, starting a new class or hobby (if you don’t have time, that’s something else we can work on!) are great ways to help you change your mindset to take on new challenges.

We face new challenges every day in the food industry, so your ability to adapt and see them as a positive “plot twist” is the key to keeping going and making the change you want to.

In the resilience workshops I run with teams, we look at ways to reframe situations, which can be a real game changer in problem solving.

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3.?????? Fearlessly celebrate diverse ways of thinking

It can be really hard to be the only one in the room that thinks a different way. It can also be just the breath of fresh air that a team needs.

What holds us back is often the fear of standing out, being branded ‘difficult’ or some other barrier which could either be made up by us, or actually be true!

Working better with the teams around you is the key to success in your projects and in your career. That’s why in the influencing and team building workshops I run always make sure that you and your teams embrace differences and have empathy for one another.

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4.?????? Fearlessly go out and build your network

For years I told myself I was crap at networking and that I hated it. But I was wrong. If you can start to reframe networking as useful and interesting conversations, it can make them a whole lot less scary. There are loads of different ways to build you network inside your organisation and outside of them, something we discuss in this episode of the Oh for Food’s sake podcast . To support you building your network in a non-scary way, Lucy Wager and I are running monthly free online “Nourish your Network” sessions , where we discuss the latest topics from the podcast with you and you get to meet some other foodies too. Register each month using this link:

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5.?????? Fearlessly get your voice heard - speak up

Getting your voice heard in an environment such as the Food industry can be HARD. There are some big personalities, who will happily get their voices heard all day long if you let them – but what about yours?

And before you start telling me all the reasons why you can’t – let me tell you why you SHOULD! Our industry is fabulous to work in, but blimey it can be hard at times. You need to stand up for yourself, the need to get the important work you have to do, done and most of all, the great ideas that you have NEED to be heard.

So start small, but do start to speak up more.

If you need more help with this, I run small group workshops on confidence in businesses and also have my Invisible to Influential course available online.

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Being fearless isn’t about putting your needs ahead of everyone else and doing things your way regardless of the consequences…. It’s embracing who you are, that your differences are your strengths and by working together as a group of Fearless Foodies, we can create the changes we would like to see in the food industry!

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Are you with me? Let me know in the comments, what you’re going to do to become more fearless in 2024….