Fear
Fear is a concept which has always interested me. Webster defines fear, the noun, as: “an unpleasant often strong emotion caused by anticipation or awareness of danger.” While career searching, an abundance of articles, books, and videos I have found reference fear hindering success. Whether subconsciously or not, fear due to anticipation of failure can block happiness, success, fortune, and suitable career choice. Often I watch videos called Ted Talks. They include various speakers on a multitude of subjects, but I tend to watch them mostly on success, values, lessons, etc. One I watched recently was by a man named Larry Smith. His Ted Talk is called Why you will fail to have a great career. In this talk, he is blunt, humorous, and insightful as to the many reasons a person will not have a great career, all of which have to do with the person and his or her choices. A few moments into the video he says:
I'm not quite sure why you decide not to do it. You're too lazy to do it. It's too hard. You're afraid if you look for your passion and don't find it, you'll feel like you're an idiot, so then you make excuses about why you're not going to look for your passion. They are excuses, ladies and gentlemen. We're going to go through a whole long list -- your creativity in thinking of excuses not to do what you really need to do if you want to have a great career.
Again, the reference of being afraid. This form of fear seems to stem from original feeling of inadequacy, but why? Fear of failure and similarly, fear of success, are addressed by life coaches, advisors, counselors, and psychologists. Forbes has an article Seven Common Career Fears and How to Overcome Them. “This is as good as it’ll get, I’m settling, I’m never getting promoted, I’m underpaid, I’m stuck here, I’m too late, and I’m in over my head” are the seven fears listen in the article. Most of these fears are self-inflicted, soaked in self-doubt and inadequacy. Where is this initiating from? Why are there so many people in the world feeling so insufficient and scared of success or failure within current or perspective jobs that there are so many people addressing it? Where is the confidence of this generation? With the massive amounts of technology at the fingertips of the majority of members of modern-day America and the world, it awes me that one of the primary reasons success is halted is due to fear, existing within the self. In all the talk with the elderly members of my generation, fear of inadequacy was never an issue. Maybe because of a multitude of other issues, fear of hunger, fear of war, fear of a family member dying, there was just no time to worry about being inadequate. Simply, their actions followed their way of life. My grandfather never worried about not being good enough. He got a job and excelled at it because he was a smart man who needed to support his family. He worked long hours, saved money, trusted his company and worked confidently.
Times, they are a changing. I understand completely that things are not what they were fifty years ago, not even ten years ago. What I cannot wrap my head around is when we, as a people, became so scared of ourselves. I can’t help wonder at what point demons of doubt instead of sparks of creativity filled up the matter that lives inside our brains. Yes, competition is at an all-time high. At what point, I wonder, did people stop rising to the occasion and start consenting with despair? We the people are better than this white hot grip of fear. We are smart, we live longer, we have access to the unimaginable and we have more options than even before. We should not be afraid. We should be confident. We should succeed.
https://www.ted.com/talks/larry_smith_why_you_will_fail_to_have_a_great_career
http://www.forbes.com/sites/work-in-progress/2013/10/15/seven-common-career-fears-and-how-to-overcome-them/#93304d36035a