The bigger your dreams, the stronger your fears, as they say. Sooner or later, though, every entrepreneur—even rock stars like Elon Musk or Richard Branson—struggles with this. It’s an inescapable part of an entrepreneur’s journey.
But if you’re hungry for success, there’s one question you should answer: Are you going to control your fear, or are you going to let fear control you?
Learning how to overcome your fear is one of the most powerful tools you can have in your entrepreneurial toolkit. It’s a skill that will put you way ahead of your competition, help you reach bigger goals, and unlock your full potential.
The examples of limiting beliefs in business are numerous, from imposter syndrome to the comparison trap and the fear of rejection to the scarcity mindset. Let’s look at the three biggest ones that will help you get to the root of most.
Here are the biggest limiting beliefs in business and how you can overcome them through strategies from Mindvalley Coach co-founder Ajit Nawalkha.
1. Fear of success
Do you find yourself repeatedly self-sabotaging your efforts to get to the next level? Do you resist taking action on your biggest goals? Do you fall back on old behavior patterns and habits that hold you back?
These are signs of fear, and they can destroy your chances of becoming all you can be as an entrepreneur. One of the reasons many entrepreneurs suffer from the fear of success is because they believe that if you want to win big, you’ve got to lose big.
For instance, if you want to make a ton of money in your business, you must work nonstop, give up self-care, and sacrifice your time with friends and loved ones.
This is simply not true.
As an entrepreneur, you have the freedom to design your life the way you want—that’s the whole point of running your own business. Some business owners work three days a week and bring in upwards of $20,000 each month—way more than what they were earning in the full-time job they quit.
How to overcome the fear of success
Understand that entrepreneurship is ultimately a series of decisions around what you want to create in your life and business. Get clear on your goals and values from the start.
This way, you can make conscious decisions about where you want to go and follow your path. When you do this, you’ll stop fearing success and welcome it instead.
2. Fear of imperfection
Deep down, we all want to be perfect. We never want to endure failure or make mistakes.
This is because we want to protect ourselves from the “shame” of imperfection.
We don’t want others to see us as “ordinary.” We want to know we can achieve all our goals right away.
But the truth is, there is no shame in starting small, experiencing failure, and making mistakes. It’s an integral part of the journey to phenomenal success.
Just ask Oprah, who was born into poverty and survived abuse as a child to become one of the richest and most respected public figures in the world.
Then there’s Steven Spielberg, who was rejected twice by the University of Southern California’s School of Cinematic Arts but went on to become a multiple Academy Award-winning movie director.
And Walt Disney, who was told by the editor of the newspaper where he worked as a young man that he “lacked imagination and had no good ideas.”
How to overcome the fear of imperfection
Redefine and reframe it in your mind. See it for what it actually is: a chance to start where you are and learn from mistakes so you can keep getting stronger, faster, and better.
Fear of imperfection has no power over you unless you let it stop you from going for your dreams. So, give yourself permission to make mistakes, and don’t let failure keep you down.
3. Fear of change
Everyone fears change—not just entrepreneurs—and with good reason.
Our brain is wired this way. To our early ancestors, a small change, such as a slight drop in temperature, could have deadly consequences. Fear of change in ancient mankind worked as a protective defense mechanism.
Fast-forward thousands of years, and our inborn fear of change hasn’t evolved much at all.
New events in our business or personal lives often motivate feelings of deep fear and resistance. This is bad news for business owners because successful entrepreneurship is about being able to shift, move, transform, grow, and change constantly.
X began life as Odeo, a podcast subscription company, before pivoting into Twitter.
Instagram started as a check-in app with gamified elements before the founders shifted course and stripped all features except one: photos.
William Wrigley Jr., of Wrigley’s chewing gum, didn’t start out selling gum. He sold soap and baking powder.
The most successful entrepreneurs in the world value and accept change as part of their journey—and so should you.
How to overcome the fear of change
Approach it with a “management” mindset. Study the details of the change in question and see where you can break things down into smaller, more manageable steps.
Avoid big, sweeping changes when possible. This will help you decrease fear and deal with it in a smart, practical way.
Be unf*ckwithable in business
Overcoming your fears will challenge you and push you way past your comfort zone, but it’s worth the trouble.
When you finally get to a place where you can look at your fears from a distance, feel them, and move forward anyway, you become unstoppable.
That’s when you get to create massive success as an entrepreneur.
Listen to the story of Ajit Nawalkha to find out how he took the risk of quitting his C-level executive position and launching Mindvalley Coach (formerly known as Evercoach). Learn how business coaching can lead to massive career breakthroughs in the free Become a Mindvalley Certified Business Coach masterclass.
