The way that I like to look at fear, especially coming from a background where I have been very highly anxious to the point where I was like in sheer panic attacks almost every day for probably four months, it was the worst time of my life, I can’t even tell you.
Hello loyal followers. It’s Christopher Lawrence with changemylifecoaching.ca, life and career coach. Followers I’ve probably got one and it’s my mom, man, I’m grateful to have her and I will do these videos just for her if that’s what it takes. What are we talking about today? I want to talk about what happens when you have fear about making a career change. What can you do when you have fear about making a career change? Cuz it does happen, doesn’t it? We do get that fear of like, am I making the right choice, you know, maybe things aren’t so bad where I am, you know, but then in your heart of hearts, you know, it’s time for a change. And, so what do you do with that?
The Fear Around Making A Career Change
Well, the way that I like to look at fear, especially coming from a background where I have been very highly anxious to the point where I was like in sheer panic attacks almost every day for probably four months, it was the worst time of my life, I can’t even tell you. It was worse than being a drug addict, it was worse than going through bankruptcy. Imagine waking up every single day feeling like someone was sitting on your chest and you’re in so much pain, physical, emotional, mental, spiritual, and, God, thinking about it makes my heart beat faster. It’s a terrible feeling and I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemies because it is awful. It is the worst thing on earth to be in that kind of place almost 24 seven.
Make Your Friends Close, But Make Your Enemies..?
So, so my approach to fear, you know, and hopefully you aren’t in as much fear as that over something like a career change, but some of you might be, is I actually learned to treat fear as the enemy. Okay, so this is interesting, that’s not surprising. But there’s this old adage and this took me a bit to figure out and I needed lots of help from folks along the journey, but what does it mean if fear is the enemy, if fear is your enemy and you’re about to go to war with fear, what does it mean? Well, actually, there’s this old phrase that says, make your friends close, but make your enemies what? Did you get it? Closer. Yeah, so we want to bring our enemies close, why? Because if, if our enemies are close, then we can we know when to strike, we can manipulate them, we can even have empathy for them, in some cases, and by having them close and getting to know them, we know how to work with them.
Get to Know Your Fear
So actually, instead of pushing fear away, which is what most of us do, when you’re thinking about a career change, you might think about what it means to bring fear closer to you. And, that’s what I did when I had to make a career change. I got to know my fear, like my best friend, instead of pushing fear away and saying fears over there, and that’s really scary. I put fear right here and I said, this is fear, and I’m going to make it my friend, and I’m going to learn about it and get to know it, and know everything I can possibly do, not just, not just academically, what is fear? But my fear, my specific fear, what is it that makes me afraid, what is it that I believe to be true about the circumstance that is causing me fear. Because most of our fears, perceived fear, some of our fears, real fear, and it’s a you know, it can be a really tough thing to distinguish when you’re, when you’re in a moment that seems extremely scary.
What is Your Plan?
So I encourage you to bring your fear close, get to know it like your best friend, so that you can twist it and manipulate it and, and empathize with it and become its friend even, and give it give it a voice, give it, give it time and space in your body instead of pushing it away from you. When I’m afraid now, I give it time and space. I say it’s okay to be afraid, but I’m not going to let fear take over, I just need to understand it. So ask your fear some questions.
Christopher Lawrence changemylifecoaching.ca, life and career coach. Tell me about some of the fears that you have, you know, career or life-related that you have overcome that you’ve worked on. We could talk about the stuff that we haven’t done too, but if you’re going to do that, tell me what steps you’re taking to work on it, down below because I would really like to give people hope when you when you’re in a place of fear, it can feel hopeless and very out of control. So let’s even if you’re going to talk about something you haven’t resolved, let’s talk about your plan for fear. I’ve got a big one I’m working on this year. So, thanks, team. We’ll see you later.
If you are interested in our leadership side, check out Change My Business Coaching!
