How to Stop Fear from Holding You Back in Your Career

Is fear stopping you from taking that next step in your career? Learn how to confront fear and turn it into the fuel that drives your professional growth.

We’ve all felt fear creeping in it at some point. Whether it’s holding you back from taking the leap into a completely different industry, starting the business you wrote down in your notes app in 2020 or pushing for that long-overdue promotion. It’s completely normal to experience career-related at some point during your journey, but when they are keeping you stuck, that’s when it’s time to tackle them.

This blog will guide you through recognising career-related fears, how they affect your decision-making and actionable tips for overcoming them, so you can truly thrive in your career. 

Recognising Career-Related Fears

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, awareness is key to change and overcoming your fears is no different. Right now, you may be going through life avoiding what you’re scared of, without realising how much fear is influencing you and the decisions you make.

Fear is often at the root of overthinking, avoidance, self-doubt and perfectionism. You might find yourself endlessly researching your business idea, planning how to change career without taking the next step or always postponing asking for a promotion. There might always be an excuse, or you might find yourself constantly procrastinating.

The more you avoid something you’re scared of, the more you become scared of it.

You fall into this self-sabotaging cycle, run completely by fear, where nothing changes and you end up feeling more stuck and frustrated.

Check in with yourself now: Is there anything you’re avoiding? Is there anything you can’t stop ruminating on? Or do you feel like something has to be perfect for you to do it? Could you actually be scared?

Whether you’re scared of making the wrong decision, of being rejected, not being liked, failing, success or something else, it’s essential to identify what fears are holding you back so you can overcome them. This is about taking back control instead of fear running your life.

Ask yourself: What am I truly afraid of?

How Fear Affects Decision-Making at Work

Fear thrives on indecision. When you allow fear to dictate your choices, you often default to the path of least resistance. We generally want to do what feels easy and enjoyable for us, rather than face challenges. This avoidance keeps you where you are and not where you actually want to be.  You can end up playing small, staying in your comfort zone and avoiding taking risks which could lead to incredible rewards. Something I often remind myself of is the things that scare me are often the exact things I should be doing in my business.

Fear can also cloud your judgment, making even the simplest decisions feel impossible. You might end up constantly second-guessing yourself as you navigate your role day-to-day, or this might show up when you’re deciding the next step you want to take in your career.  This might mean staying in a job you don’t like because it feels too daunting to decide what to do or where to go next.

Fear can sometimes influence decision-making in the opposite way. You might impulsively jump into a new job, purely out of desperation and just to get it over with, so you don’t have to feel the fear anymore. This avoidance doesn’t help you to actually get over the fear, but rather delays it to a later time.

Actionable Tips to Overcome Career Fears

So, you’re aware of your fears, now what? This isn’t about completely getting rid of fear. It’s something we all experience, a natural human response and is there to keep us safe. What we need to do is learn to manage our fears and work with it rather than against it.

Trust Your Instincts

Things can become really noisy when you start to experience fear – your vision might narrow, your heart might start beating a bit quicker, you’re rushing through a million and one scenarios in your mind. It’s exhausting and it’s understandable why anyone would want to avoid these feelings. I want you to learn how you can quiet down this noise and come back to your gut.

The next time you start to feel overwhelmed by a decision and you start to doubt yourself, I want you to try and pause. Ground yourself by taking  some deep breaths, in through your noise and out through your mouth – try sighing when you exhale as this is a great way to regulate your nervous system. You can also take a moment to focus on something you can see, taking in all the details of it, or focus in on a sound, something close by then something further away.

When you start to feel a little calmer, ask yourself – what feels right for me?

Trusting your instincts isn’t about ignoring the facts or the data, it’s about aligning those with what is best for you plus knowing that you have so much inner wisdom. You just need to quiet down the noise to hear it. The more you listen and trust your instincts, the more confident you will feel making decisions based off of it for your career.

Please know that this takes practice! The more you practice catching yourself in that moment, the easier and more automatic it becomes. You’re creating a new neural pathway!

Embrace Failures as Learning Opportunities

One of the most important things I want you to do is get comfortable with failure. The truth is we all fail at some point in our journey but when there is so much fear around this, it leaves you feeling completely paralysed to make any decisions or take any action.

Instead, I want you to welcome failure (I know this might be challenging in the beginning) as an opportunity for growth. Each setback is a lesson to bring you closer to success – in fact I believe I have learnt and grown so much more from “failures” than from successes.

One of my biggest “failures” was in 2019, I had taken the leap to change my entire career and started a job in Marketing. Day 1 I came home and cried because I knew it wasn’t right for me. At first it felt like such a huge failure, I’d left a job I was no longer enjoying, tried to figure out what I wanted to do with my life, moved from HR to Marketing and it wasn’t right. Although this job was definitely not right for me, it was honestly one of the BEST things to ever happen in my career. This rock-bottom moment allowed me to gain even more clarity around what I do and don’t want to do in my career and led me to starting my coaching diploma. It was a key moment in helping me get to where I am today and for that I will always be so grateful.

I want you to reconsider how you view failure because for me, I no longer see situations like this as failures, I see them as opportunities for me to grow, learn, reflect and develop. Failure for me is only if I want to do something but I never actually do it. How do you want to redefine failure for yourself?

As you navigate your career, any time something doesn’t work out the way you hoped, ask yourself: What can I learn from this? Over time, this will help transform your relationship with failure, turning it from something to be feared to a stepping stone towards your success.

Real-Life Examples: Leaders Who Overcame Fear to Succeed 

I want to introduce you to proofs it’s possible – this is essentially where you find other people overcoming or achieving what you want to overcome or achieve and seeing it as proof it is possible for you too.

Now you might already know friends, family members or other people in your network who have overcome fears to succeed which is great. You might have overcome fears in your past, which is amazing proof you can do this too.

I also wanted to share some real-life examples of leaders who overcame their fears to succeed. 

Some of the most successful leaders in the corporate world are those who have learned to overcome their fears – in fact I think most people experience fear at some point in their career journey.

Despite Sheryl Sandberg being the COO of Facebook, she battelled imposter syndrome and constantly thought she would be found out as a fraud. She recognised that this lack of confidence and self-belief also impacted a number of other people, especially women and later documented her experiences of facing this fear in her book, Lean In.

As a child, Samuel L. Jackson was incredibly scared of public speaking and had a debilitating stutter. By facing his fears, he has gone on to win an Academy Award and appear in more than 120 movies.

I would highly recommend you create a list of all your proofs it’s possible for you – use these examples, or research your own, add fears you’ve overcome, and any examples from people you know.

Stop Fear Holding You Back in Your Career - Next Steps

Fear is an inevitable part of life and it doesn’t magically disappear as you climb the career ladder. So instead of avoiding it or letting it dictate your decisions, start to face your fears and use them to fuel your growth.

Set aside some time to:

• Recognise on what your career-related fears are

• Reflect on how it is impacting you and your career

• Practice connecting to your gut instincts

• Redefine failure

• Create your “proofs it’s possible” list

If you want to read more about fear, I recommend this blog on Mastering Fear: Turning Uncertainty into Opportunity and Fear of Success.

Remember you don’t have to face your fears alone, book a free discovery call to learn how I can support you.

You’ve got this!

Elyssa x