Using Fear To Your Advantage

Using Fear To Your Advantage
Facing your fears can help you achieve successes you never knew were possible

A friend of mine worked for a large Indian telecommunications company. After about six years of working there, he found that the initial excitement had died down and that his learning and growth had plateaued. That was when he received an offer to start up operations of a new entrant. The initial meetings clearly indicated to him that the role would be exciting. In fact, this was just what he was looking out for. There would be many challenges, especially since the company was new. At the same time, there would be tremendous learning.

However, after about three long months of discussions, my friend decided not to accept the offer. The reason he gave me was ‘fear’. He loved the job description but was afraid. He was afraid of stepping out of his comfort zone, of losing himself in unfamiliar territory, and of starting something entirely new. Fear made him flee from a great opportunity.

Fear happens to all of us and most of us normally react in one of two ways. We either flee, wherein we try to run away, or we hide and freeze, where we do not know what to do and are paralysed. These make people let their fears play on their minds and allow them to reach uncontrollable levels — leading to anxiety and pessimism. Like my friend who decided to give up on his opportunity, they continuously tell themselves, “I do not want to take risks. I do not want to do anything that I fear. It does not matter whether I am growing or learning, as long as I am safe in this old place where I have no fear.” But the problem is that, with time, your fears only get worse. You even begin to start fearing things that have absolutely no risks attached to them. You end up losing out on all the great opportunities in life.
How Do We Tackle Fear?

As the lines of a recent television commercial go, ‘at the end of fear, there is success’. The commercial shows two youngsters who are excited by an opportunity to tackle their fear. They react by fighting it, and enjoy every moment of the experience. Can we do this? Yes, of course. Think about adventure parks and horror movies where we pay good money to be scared out of our wits. We find this fear exciting. We deliberately trigger automatic reactions of fear in order to experience the thrill.

Like any other emotion, fear has both positive and negative aspects. Negative fear is debilitating. Positive fear is exhilarating. Life is boring without fear. Successful leaders constantly search for new, risky ventures. They even consciously focus on doing things that other people are afraid to do; go places where others fear to tread. Counteract the discomfort of fear by focusing on the positive side — the learning and the growth that every event generates. See events in a positive light that would give you power to overcome your fears and help you accomplish what you want to do.

People think that fear is paralysing and reduces your potential. Actually, the opposite is true. Fear can generate super-human feats. Have you not heard stories where normal people fought valiantly to save their friends and family from grave danger? Facing fear is empowering for leaders. It gives you strength you never knew you had. Fear is only damaging when you run away and do not confront it.

People avoid fear in order to preserve independence. Fear is only enslaving when someone else is purposefully trying to be fearsome and controlling. But the fear of reality — the possibility of missed opportunities — can motivate you to get to where you want to be. Rather than being afraid about losing security, comfort and predictability, start fearing about losing out on opportunities; start fearing about getting nowhere in life. Be afraid of being mediocre. Be afraid of waking up one morning and saying to yourself: “Why did I waste my life?” Use fear to your advantage. Fears accompany you until the threshold. Beyond that there is no fear, just success.


ON LEADERSHIP: SANGEETH VARGHESE for Business World.

The author is a leadership scholar from the LSE and founder of LeadCap. His book, Decide to Lead: Eight Decisions That Can Make You A Leader, will soon be published by Businessworld. will soon be published by Businessworld. He can be contacted at sangeethv@leadcap.org