When you held a job there was always someone else you could either blame or count on to bail you out, but now that you own your own business there's no one but you. Sometimes it may feel like the world is crumbling around you and that failure is one heartbeat away and you have no one else you can count on. When you have these thoughts realize you're trapped in the grips of fear and your fear will keep you from success.



Fear is an emotion based response. The information you have may be feeding your fear and keeping you from focusing on the facts. You may have the information that you don't have enough money in your checking account to pay your current bills.

You may have information that your projected revenues will not provide enough money to pay those bills, and that you lack the ability to obtain any further credit extensions. But you need to focus on the underlying facts rather than the information. The facts may be: you don't know how to market yourself, you don't know how to sell, you don't have a budget, etc. Get to the facts about your situation and don't focus on the information.

Every business owner's worst fear is running out of money. Running out of money means game over you're out of business. You will probably be highly emotional, but you don't want to panic. The whole time your panicking you're wasting time and not focused on doing the things you need to do to succeed.

When you focus on everything you can't do you're headed on downward spiral with no hope of saving yourself. Rather than focusing on what you can't do, focus on the things you can do. The first step to fixing any problem is knowing exactly what you have to do next. Dump the scarcity mentality and adopt an abundance mentality. You recognize that you can't sell, but you think you can't afford to get the help you need to learn how to sell. In reality, you can't afford not to get the help you need. If you don't get the help you need you won't be able to discover what you don't know by yourself through trial and error fast enough to keep things going.

Sometimes you have to make decisions and take actions based on a leap of faith caused by your belief in yourself and what you're doing. Your business exists for a purpose and that purpose must be worthy of your customers. Does your business exist for a logical reason?

When you started out you were confident in your business and your potential for success. Otherwise you wouldn't have put your blood, sweat, and tears into your business. When you base your decisions on the facts and take the actions you need to take to make it work you can only lose if you decide to quit. Even though you may not have the money to do what you need to do, and you may not be eligible for a loan, but there are always ways to get more money so you can get what you need if you're just creative enough.

Get creative. The entire time you're focusing your thoughts and energies on fear you aren't focused on actions. Fearful thoughts only make matters worse. Focus your thoughts and energies on developing a plan for taking the actions you need to take to make this business a success. The Success Model below is a free tool designed to help you to get focused on the right actions so you can get your focus off fear and on the actions that will help you to succeed.