Take Charge of Your Career Manage Your Fears - Hallie Crawford

Take Charge of Your Career Manage Your Fears Is fear currently holding you back from asking for a promotion, making a career change, or reaching out for a new goal? If so, you are not alone. 90% of our coaching clients say that they are their biggest obstacle to their career dreams. To take charge of your career, it’s important to learn how to control your fears. There are three main tips that I use to control my fears that we are going to share with you: Identify Manage Visualize Success In a previous article, we discussed a simple yet very effective process to identify your fears. This article will help you learn how to manage your fears. Manage your fears. In order to effectively manage your fears, you need to acknowledge the reality. While you were identifying what your fears are, were any of them true? For example, perhaps one of your fears was that you don’t qualify for another type of job. Is there a ring of truth in that fear? Develop a process for managing your fears. There are several ways to do this: Talk back Ignore Push aside Affirmations No matter what process you choose to manage your fears, you always need to acknowledge the truth. Now, think about what your own negative thoughts and sayings are. Which process would work better for you personally? Let’s imagine now that one of your negative thoughts is “I am not confident” and you decide to use an affirmation to manage it. Make sure you choose something that you truly believe in. If you say: “I am confident.” This affirmation could backfire, since it probably isn’t 100% true. If you don’t believe it, it’s really just an empty statement and won’t be effective. Your negative thoughts will eventually win the battle. “I am building my confidence.” This is an affirmation you can really get behind. It is 100% true and it’s harder for the negative voice in your head to come back with something to combat your affirmation. This will be effective in the long run. Attitude is everything. Attitude is defined as a complex mental state involving beliefs, feelings and dispositions to act in certain ways. It is very important to pay attention to your attitude. Attitude starts in your mind and affects your actions at work. Your attitude affects your actions, which in turn affects your outcome. If you have a fearful, negative attitude about your transition you are setting yourself up for a negative outcome. So how can you keep your attitude in check? There are several effective ways: Avoid negative nellies and a negative environment. Try turning off the news. Ask for support. Ask a friend to help you stay positive and focused. Take small risks. Seeing small victories will help you feel positive about taking bigger risks. Conduct informational interviews. Talk to someone who has the job that you want. Now, decide what two things you can start to implement this week. Write them down in your journal. Update your journal weekly about your progress and make changes if necessary. If you find you are struggling with this process, don’t give up. We are here to help.