“Do the thing you fear, and continue to do so. This is the quickest and surest way of all victory over fear.” — Dale Carnegie

Fear is universal, whether you’re a multi-billion dollar investor or a convenience store clerk, everyone deals with some sort of fear in their lives. It’s this fear that can hold us back from leading the life we dream of, from taking risks, from achieving our goals and from attempting to build a business of our own.

Some of us fear being judged by others, some fear that they are not good enough to achieve their goals, others simply fear having to face the unknown and what it might mean if they fail.

For years it was this mentality that held me back from making the ‘leap of faith‘ to following my own dreams.

Finally after years of living a half filled life, this last month I decided I had had enough and I ventured out on my own to start my own company. It was through this leap of faith that I finally realized the secret to conquering fear and building your dream business.

Fear to launch

Facing your fears can often feel so daunting that it seems nearly impossible to attempt. We look at challenges in our lives as things we must attempt all at once; that everything must be all or nothing and that we need to make drastic changes to see dramatic results. This is a mistake.

You don’t need to quit your job to become an entrepreneur any more than you need to run 100kms to become a runner. Conquering your fears is about taking small steps to achieve big results.

Fear of not knowing

One of the big fears holding people back from tackling their business dreams is a lack of knowledge in their chosen venture. How can you possibly launch a business if you’re not an expert in every aspect of that market?

With this mentality you could spend the rest of your life ‘preparing’ and never actually take action.

The reality is most entrepreneurs aren’t anywhere close to being experts in their fields. Most entrepreneurs started out knowing just enough to get them going and then learned the rest as they went.

It’s this motivation to learn as you go that sets successful entrepreneurs apart from those that fail or never get themselves off the ground at all.

If you are passionate about what you’ve chosen and if you have the skills to do it then quit sitting on the fence, go out and give it a try.

Fear of failure

The reality is that it’s through our failures that we find our greatest lessons. Silicon Valley’s motto is “fail fast, fail often, fail forward” because they know the more an entrepreneur fails, the stronger their next venture will become.

The important thing isn’t to fear failure but rather to fear not learning anything from it. If you try, and fail, that means that you at least made an attempt which is endlessly more valuable to you than not having tried at all.

Fear of being judged

Fear of failure is often more about what others will think of you than the failure itself. We let our fragile egos limit our success out of fear that we will be judged as anything but perfect.

Surprisingly the reality is quite the opposite. Your credibility, even as a failure is usually stronger than someone who never tried at all. A failure is someone who is willing to take risks and seeks greatness and they have had real world experience, either good or bad.

These are things that simply can’t be taught and it’s these individuals that employers seek out when building their teams.

Realize that the risk of failure is actually not nearly as risky as you might believe. Your worst case scenario is that you took a shot and missed, but the value that you built in yourself in the process will set you up for success for years to come.