I simply can’t believe it’s been eleven years since I started the PakMag journey, and over twenty years of being self employed. I have no business degree, I didn’t really grow up in an entrepreneurial family, and I certainly haven’t had a silver spoon in my mouth to get here. What got me here was fear, and what will get me to the next level that I am aiming for, is more fear.
The thing is, fear is a wonderful thing. Growing up in a lower socioeconomic, divorced family, money was very tight and fought over often. One day I remember very clearly, my mum made me ring my dad for new school shoes, and for his own reasons, he said no. I knew he would say no, I think even my mother knew he would too. But in that moment as a seven-year-old girl, I made a vow that I would never ask for money from anyone ever again, and I decided that I would work so hard so that I never had to worry about money. And that is what I have done. (I started selling handmade cards to neighbours, then Avon from age ten but that’s another story). The fear of being poor has driven me my whole life. It has made me save like a squirrel, which thankfully has gotten me through some very tough business times and allowed me to keep people I care about employed even though I wasn’t earning money anymore.
So if you are having a battle with fear, whether that be a fear to leave a partner, fear to leave a job, fear to take your life to the next level, fear of being irrelevant, fear of whether to start or stop something, my advice to you is to use fear as a motivator.
Fear is certainly one of my biggest motivators, and I have realised the more fear I have with doing something, the more I should be doing it.
When I am fearful, I write down my fear and I do these three things.
- I ask myself “What is the worst that could happen?” (for business it’s always been – go home and live with my mum. HUGE motivator)
- I ask myself, “Can I handle the worst case scenario if it goes wrong?”
- I ask myself “What if I pull it off? How would I feel?”
Use fear, don’t fear fear. Fear will push you further when you think you can’t go on.
As a society we are so fearful. But often fearful in a way that means we are frozen and don’t do anything to fix it and only achieve half of what we want to in life. We need more strong people, especially parents, mastering their fear and using fear to their advantage.
So please, do that thing in your heart that you have always wanted to do. Today is the day! It’s so important that we show our kids we are brave at every opportunity we can. So it’s time to catch that spider, jump off that jetty, stand up for what’s right, push yourself outside your comfort zone and tell them how scared you were at first, but how glad you are that you were brave and took the plunge. Mastering fear and being brave is one of the best things you will ever teach your kids. So if you can’t do it for you, do it for them.
