Fear of losing money is one of the reasons why many people fail to start a business. In all of my seminars, this is always one of the top answers when I ask them reasons for not starting on their idea. And yes, it is normal to have fears because we do not know what might happen to the business, wether we will succeed or not. In this article I will talk about fear and how to lessen them to help you start your business.

Fear

Fear in many dictionaries is defined as an unpleasant emotion caused by belief that an untoward incident might happen. In other words that “It” is an event that has not happened yet or may not even happen at all. However, we feel the sensation of fear because we imagine our failure to handle risky situations and so, we create our own fear. Let us say you want to start a business involving food. You think of your plans, your processes and finances, you even put it down on paper to create a business plan but even before starting on it, you think of different negative situations, you imagine yourself losing money or closing shop. This thoughts do not help, it only paralyzes you.

Different ways to conquer the fear of starting a business

The quest in this article is not to take away fear because there are no cure for fear. It is part of our human nature – it is a signal that we are threatened and that we need to do something. It is better that we consider fear as an early warning device to help us prepare on what actions to take. The following are possible actions you can take to lessen the fear in starting a business:

Take baby steps

Starting a business can be overwhelming. There are just too many things to do: planning, financing, registration, sales, marketing and others. To make it easier to start, break down the things you need to do because you do not have to do it in one strike. Create activities each week that will lead you to your goals.

Focus on learning

Any experienced entrepreneur knows that “trial and error” is part of the business process. The objective of anyone in a new business, wether he is experienced or inexperience, is to learn and find the right model for business. This means that you have to do a lot of experiments and adjustments to your plans to find the right combination of activities that leads to profit.

Commit yourself

Most especially for startups, you have to commit time and yourself in the business. A new business behaves like a baby, it is demanding and needs plenty of care. And like any baby, it crawls before it walks and walks before it can run. Not to forget that along the way, it falls.

Find you allies

Get plenty of people involved in the business. The more people who can help you, the less afraid you will be in starting your business. Your allies can be your friends and family members.

Control your mind

Earlier, I said that we create our own fear when we think of negative thoughts. Us being the creator of our fear means that we can control them. We can do this by thinking positive thoughts. Positive thinking is not about thinking of nice things or denying the presence of risks. It is about thinking of actions to take, to eliminate what we fear. The only time we will win against fear is when we have eliminated the risks that causes our fear.

Conclusion

Fear of losing money is a normal sensation when trying to start a business. What brings fear is the unknown outcome and the different risks of a new venture. If you want to be an entrepreneur, you have to be able to live with uncertainty. The battle is not against fear because fear will always be there. The war is against ourselves to find the will to take action, and know that all our fears are false.