How often do you find yourself hesitating at work or in life to say or do what you truly want? How afraid are you that just being yourself could hurt your career trajectory? What is holding you back from “putting it all out there” and being authentic? How much are you allowing fear to consume you and impact your performance?

Fears are common. They are so common that I came across a giant list of fears when googling the word, most of which I had never even heard of (check it out at https://www.verywellmind.com/list-of-phobias-2795453). The most prevalent group of fears in the work environment is social fears. To list a few:

• Revealing personal information about yourself
• Asserting yourself and stating your needs
• Interacting with certain types of people
• Being the center of attention
• Fear of something embarrassing happening 

The list continues. But what is the reason fear is so common and omnipresent in our daily lives? Fears, real or unreal, are our mind’s way of trying to protect us from getting hurt. Fears are also getting in our way of reaching our full potential as leaders. Imagine what your career would look like if you were fearless and unafraid of other people’s judgment.

Fearlessness is the sixth practice (a.k.a. discipline) out of the ten featured in this series of how you can unleash the career of your dreams. All ten practices help increase your leadership potential and performance. In case you have missed previous articles on the subject, here is the complete list of the ten practices as defined by the Institute for Professional Excellence in Coaching (iPEC): 

1. Awareness
2. Acceptance
3. Conscious Choice
4. Trusting the Process
5. Authenticity
6. Fearlessness
7. Confidence
8. Connection
9. Presence in the Moment
10. 100% Energetic Engagement

When clients express their fears to me, my first approach is to explore the origin of their fears. Have they experienced situations in their formative years when their performance was not deemed good enough? Are they assuming that history will repeat itself because they have experienced a similar situation in the past? Are they interpreting a situation and steering away from the facts? Or are they holding limiting beliefs about what a person must look like and act like to become a successful executive? 

Once we have identified their inner blocks, my next step is to challenge their beliefs and find their truths. We are directing much awareness (see discipline #1) to the origins of their fears and then systematically dismantling them. When you gradually become more fearless, you can re-direct energies from holding you back to propelling you forward. When you are fearless, the sky is the limit. Wait, let me re-phrase that: When you are fearless, there are no limits to what you can achieve!  

As a professional coach, I have several tools to help you practice being a fearless leader. If you are interested in learning more, contact me at angela@belladonnacareercoach.com.