“What would you do if you weren’t afraid?”

This question practically changed my outlook on life and helped me in making the toughest decisions, in the most crucial times.

Ask yourself, how many times you have lost valuable opportunities just because you were afraid? The feeling or realization is not pleasant, but if you are reading this, it means that you have accepted your weakness and you are looking for ways to overcome it.

Entrepreneurship is a journey and the end destination depends on the routes you take along the way. This instills a fear of unknown in many entrepreneurs. Here are 5 fears that you have to overcome to be a successful entrepreneur.

Fear of taking the first step

To begin a journey, you have to be brave enough to take the first step that puts you out on the path. Often, the decision of taking the first step is the hardest part about the whole process. The fear of starting can be a result of over-thinking and over-analyzing every little detail. I have heard people giving excuses like, ‘Oh you know, I am trying to perfect all the details before starting, I am a perfectionist.’ But let’s face the hard truth, you are not a perfectionist, you are just afraid of starting. Either that or you are confused about where to start from.

As an entrepreneur, you should understand that, setting up a business is not a onetime thing, it’s an ongoing process. You learn through your experiences and you evolve along the way. So you should stop trying to perfect the details and focus more on executing them.

Fear of taking the risk

One of the defining characteristics of an entrepreneur is that they are not afraid to take the risks. When you are employed and working for someone else, they have to take the hard decisions about the future of the business. You just have to follow the orders to reach that goal. But while you are running your own business, it is you who have to make the call. You have to take the risks, in order to get the returns.

The fear or taking the risk arises because of the uncertainty of the outcome. While you cannot omit 100% uncertainty, with careful speculations you can predict the outcome to certain accuracy. And that assurance is enough to overcome your fear of taking the risk.

Fear of failure

You should understand it from the first step, that failure is inevitable. So don’t let the fear of failure cripple you and crush your spirits. When you were a kid, you didn’t learn how to walk the first time you decided to do it, but you did it anyway, you learnt it over a period of years. Apply the same philosophy to your career. Give it your 100%, hope for the best outcome but be prepared for the worst to happen.

So the next time, you fail at something, look at situation critically and ask yourself what you learned from it. It will change your perspective and transform the way you do your business.