OVERCOMING THE FEAR OF STARTING A BUSINESS !!

What's stopping you from starting a business? When I ask people this question, they often respond that they're scared of failure . They say things such as “I'm scared to start my own business. I don't know if people would be interested in buying this product.” Or “I'd like to start a business but I’m not very good at selling.” Or even “I’d like to start a business but I don’t know if I could make enough money to live on.” See? The obstacle to starting a business is not actually about products or selling or money ,it's fear of failure.

If fear of failure is what is preventing you from starting a business, you have to get around it and forge ahead. How Do You Get Rid of Fear of Failure .How can you break your paralysis and get past being scared of failure? You have to do two things: You need to Prepare to succeed, and change your attitude towards failure.

1. Prepare to Succeed - The first thing you need to do to prepare to succeed is to learn how to do it. You already know how to fail. You can fail by doing nothing or you can fail by doing stupid things. But how do you succeed? By finding out exactly what you would need to be successful and ensuring that those needs are met. Arming yourself with knowledge is the path to success.

If you want to start a business selling herbal soaps and bath products. For this business to be successful, you need to have essentially 4 things.

1. Enough people who want to buy the soaps and bath products you're selling.

2. A product whose quality and price is competitive enough that people want to buy it .

3. A way to bring the two of these (people and product) together. 4. 4. Something that makes purchasing your product(s) compelling .

The best way to figure out how to meet these needs is to work through a Business Plan. Creating a business plan will fill in the gaps in your knowledge and provide the details of how you’re going to do what needs to be done to start and run a particular small business successfully. Your business plan will be, in effect & will be your blueprint for success.

2. Change Your Attitude Towards Failure - Why are you specifically scared to start your own business? Most people fear failure because they think. Failure makes you a “loser” that others look down on. You could lose all or most of your money and/or your possessions. Both of these ideas are misconceptions. Failure doesn’t change your genes or your personality.

Failure affects some people’s actions negatively, but it’s not negative in itself. Will you be a “loser” if you fail? Only if you allow yourself to be. “It’s not being down; it’s staying down” that makes you a loser. Will others look down on you? Failure can be uncomfortable and unpleasant, but is not life-threatening. And failure is always an opportunity of one kind or another . It is an opportunity to stretch beyond our usual boundaries, to learn something valuable. Remembering this positive face of failure and focusing on it will go a long way towards changing your attitude about it.

Believe me - Starting and running your own small business could be one of the most enriching experiences of your life. Don’t let your fear of failure make you miss out. You are not going to be able to outrun your fear. But eventually, once you build on enough successes, you will be able to tame it. Why don't you start now !!

Emmanuel Mukula - Life Coach !!