3 Tips to Help Eliminate Fear

Your potential to achieve is limited only by your level of fear.

Corporate Americans have a fear of doing anything new. They’re comfortable doing the same thing over and over again. You know, “we ran that promotion last year, let’s run it again this year.”

Eric Schulz
Marketing Author & Expert

If people can’t even talk about their ideas, there is little to no chance that they will take action on the ideas that are necessary to make a tangible difference at work or in life.

Here are 3 tips for helping to eliminate fear when facing a challenge:

1. Write down all the Reasons Why You Think an Idea Can Not Work:

Bring the fears straight to the front. Encourage honesty from the teams. What are the nastiest issues we face. Then one by one start to address them, starting with the biggest hurdle first. If you can’t overcome the biggest hurdle, then you won’t waste time on the project at all. If you find out you CAN overcome the biggest hurdle, you will build incredible momentum as the team grows their confidence in the idea. If you can’t overcome it, the team will feel that they’ve smartly killed a project, which can actually fuel the next project because their energy has been preserved.

2. Make Failing Easier:

And celebrate every time your team fails. Yes, you read that right, reward them for trying and failing. Without knowing it is okay to try and fail no one will ever take the leap. You can protect the downside here by making failing easy and cheap to do. Set up a low risk “sand box” environment where your teams can try and test concepts with customers that could be great or terrible?

3. Start with a Small Challenge That You Know Will Give Your Team a Guaranteed Win:

Then celebrate it. You’d be surprised what just one win will do for starting to eliminate fear.

LEADERSHIP BONUS: As a leader when people are sharing ideas be the first one to offer up an idea and make it absurd and ridiculous the more outlandish the better. The team will immediately start feeling less self-conscious about sharing their ideas.