Whether we admit it, or not, at some stage or another in our business development cycle, we have all experienced a serious, crippling or even a paralysing case of the “CDs” or “The Creeping Doubts”. These can manifest at any time, it could have been when you started your business, and felt overwhelmed by “The Getting Started Creeping Doubt”, that niggly internal little voice that asks “why did you leave your safe and secure job, (or career) to do this?” Despite the fact that you have probably never worked so hard and received so little reward financially. This created feelings of discomfort and uncertainty as to whether, or not, you made the right choice to abandon stability and certainty to follow you heart and manifest your dream. Once you have successfully jumped this initial hurdle, you were affected, at some time, or another, by “The Fear of Failure Creeping Doubt”, asking yourself, “what if this new venture does not work?”
Knowing that your business idea is one “whose time has come” and that you have worked diligently to define your vision, articulate and implement your business plan. Some lapse in your thinking caused you to lose confidence in yourself, your dream, and perhaps even your ability to make things happen. Some of us have been affected instead by “The Fear of Success Creeping Doubt”, asking yourself “what if this new venture does really work?” Feeling as if you are sinking, telling yourself that no-one, in their right mind would buy something from you or your venture when “there are millions of others doing it better” than you! It’s as if “someone, like you” really doesn’t “deserve” to be successful. These are just three of the range of serious internal challenges that we, as business owners face when we have dared to “step up and stand out” by taking responsibility for our lives, dealt effectively with our negative emotions and ventured down the entrepreneurial “yellow brick road”. Unfortunately, we weren’t taught how to manage any of these serious and often deep and negative emotional challenges in school, college, university or even in business school. From my thirty plus years of consulting experience across the business spectrum, I have noticed that there are three typical responses to the “CD’S”:
- Denial plus Power, “This isn’t happening to me, I just need to and will push thorough this!” The outcome, over time, is potential burnout!
- Avoidance plus Passivity, “This is too hard, I just need to let it all go and get a real job!” The outcome is giving up on yourself and your dream!
- Acceptance plus Flow, “This is awful and it’s really happening to me! What can I learn from this? What can I do about it?” The outcome is a chance to move forwards, in spite of what you might be telling yourself!
Most of us know that the first two responses don’t tend to resolve these cognitive challenges, other than keeping us in a virtuous circle of pain and resistance that never ends. The risk is that it becomes an unconscious habitual pattern, or way of dealing with all of our major life or emotional challenges. Many of you also know that it takes a courageous and bold entrepreneur to acknowledge these distortions and their likely consequences, because, at the time, they appear to be “real enough!” Being present to these often crippling thoughts and allowing them to simply be creates the potential for Flow and Resolution, which is a much more useful way of dealing with life’s challenges! Here is an opportunity to experiment and expand on this second way of responding:
- Take the time to retreat and reflect, to tune in and acknowledge how you are feeling, listen to your own unique manifestations of “The Creeping Doubts”.
- Make a decision and choose not to believe them, acknowledge that they are just a distortion of something someone told you, at some time, in the past, and that they are not “The Truth”.
- Next time you hear the niggly “Creeping Doubt Internal Voice”, create some kind of disruption or interruption, which could sound like, “Oh no, not you again!”
- Finally become, what Martin Seligman, the father of Positive Psychology, calls “an ace disputer”, and develop and refine your own set of internally disruptive questions.
These enable you to externalize the niggly voice that creates it’s own unique anxiety disorder, to actively dispute it. Some of these might include “Why should I listen to you?” “What do you really know about me and my capabilities?” “What make you think that?” Operating from “what is”, and from Flow, enables us to transform self depreciating “Creeping Doubts” into a powerful and indestructible form of entrepreneurial resilience. This embodies the courage, boldness and presence required to stay in the business game, develop new business skills and create new and wonderful business opportunities for ourselves and our customers. For more information on our programs, please contact janet@imaginenation.co.il, attend one of our complimentary webinars (December 14th is our next available one) or go to www.imaginenation.co.il or to one of the following links: Coach for Innovators Certified Program™ or The Start-Up Game™. Join the ImagineNation Community by downloading our free e-book.
