Starting a business sounds great. It’s fun to daydream about what it will feel like when you’re a successful business owner. When it comes down to it, though, many people fail to take steps toward making that dream a reality. Of the many reasons people don’t actually get started on their business, fear is a common one. Some feeling terrified that they will fail, others think that a speckled history disqualifies them from future success.
However, there’s an unexpected reason why you might fail to start a new business or stop short of the level of business achievement you could have: You are afraid of success.
New credit repair business owner Evelyn Frazier illustrated how she developed her successful business within one year of starting at the 2019 Credit Repair Expo.
What Is the Fear of Success?
The concept sounds backward at first: how could anyone fear success? Isn’t that something everyone wants?
If you don’t have role models for what success looks like, becoming a successful business owner, or a business owner at all, can be scary.
At this year’s Credit Repair Expo, Evelyn Frazier told her story of coming from making $10 to $12 per hour at call centers a mom trying to support her family. She was fed up and looked into ways to make a good income. She wanted to get a better income without going back to pursue a bachelor’s degree –– sacrificing time with her family for years only to be on the bottom rung of a new industry.
When she started out, she did not know anything about the credit repair industry. She didn’t have a college degree. She didn’t know how to run a business. So, when she began fixing credit through another company and gained some success, she also started to feel afraid. She was in over her head and didn’t know what to do next.
Fear of success is that feeling in the pit of your stomach when you’re at the edge of doing something big. It’s the dry throat you get when you’re about to click “TRY IT FREE NOW” for business software. It’s the pounding heartbeat as you step into the office of a large auto dealer who is curious about becoming an affiliate.
The truth is that reaching high levels of success requires taking steps that you may not feel ready for –– it doesn’t mean you aren’t ready for success. Get acquainted with the fear of success so you can look it in the eyes and decide for yourself if that feeling is right about you
Here are two of the most important questions to consider: Am I afraid of reaching my dreams? and How do I overcome the fear of success?
Am I Afraid of Reaching My Dreams?
Reaching your dreams will give you more successes, opportunities, happiness than you probably can imagine right now. Getting to that amazing place means facing the fears that come with higher success and more responsibility for yourself, your clients, and possibly a team of employees.
Here are three ways the fear of success may show up in your life.
1) You fear change
The truth is that certain areas of your life will need to change as you gain traction in your business.
When you become successful in your credit repair business you can expect changes in:
- Your home life
- Your personal relationships
- Your business relationships
- Your finances
- How you spend your time, including how much free time you have
- How you spend your money
Changes in these areas might sound fantastic when you think about your ideal life. There is a beginning, a middle, and an end to every story, including your success story. The middle part –– where you’re working long hours, feeling the stress of building a business, and not yet finding success –– may be the hardest, and require the most change.
When you start to feel anxiety about the changes arising, remind yourself that you’ve gone through changes before –– sometimes even changes that were outside of your control. Working toward a successful credit repair business brings changes that you are choosing.
Here’s a way to help your survival brain to catch up with your thinking brain: You can tell your brain that this is good stress, and keep on with the discomfort of new pathways. Eventually, the short-term survival brain will catch up with your long-term thinking brain, and you’ll start to feel more comfortable with the changes, and with change in general. This is a good skill for a credit repair business owner to possess!
2) You fear greater responsibility
To reach your credit hero repair dreams, you’ll need to be able to lead yourself and others over obstacles every single day. This requires a level of personal and professional responsibility that you might feel is too much to hold.
Employees may depend on you for a paycheck. Clients may count on you to follow through with dispute letters. Your income is often based on how successful you are.
In her talk at the Credit Repair Expo, Evelyn reminded new business owners what they need to learn about and be responsible for, such as:
- The Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA)
- How to remain in compliance with the laws and regulations for your business (which vary state by state)
- Credit Repair Organizations Act (CROA) - part of the consumer credit protection act
- Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA) - regulating debt collectors and prohibiting “abusive, unfair, or deceptive practices” in debt collection
This is a lot to learn! So, over time, you might find yourself shying away from the responsibility of running a business out of fear. Fear not! With the right credit repair software and support from other business owners, you can run a successful business. Tackle the fear of responsibility with the support of software that automates processes and organizes the information and tasks you need to keep up with. This takes the edge of the feeling that you are going it alone.
3) You fear yourself
Many of us have internalized the belief that we don’t deserve success or happiness. Evelyn was not ready to run a credit repair business when she first started out. She had no experience. If she listened to that voice of fear or self-doubt, she wouldn’t have gotten to the level of success she did, making $10,000 per month within her first year.
Perhaps you think that past financial troubles will make you a bad credit repair business owner (which isn’t true at all, by the way). Credit repair millionaire Samuel Naquin experienced bankruptcy before he started his credit repair business.
Maybe you think that mistakes at work or in your career signal that you repeat the past. At this year’s Credit Repair Expo, Credit repair millionaire Jose Rodriguez told his story of overcoming a mistake that landed him in jail. Jose was court-marshaled in the military after he followed the crowd in doing illegal recruiting tactics. This was a very difficult time and rocked Jose to his core. Jose realized the toll that his mistakes had on his wife and his family and he felt horrible about it. Instead of being afraid that couldn’t be trusted with responsibilities, he learned from his blunder to be a better leader and business owner who thinks further ahead and follows best practices.
There are over 25 millionaires who run their credit repair business with Credit Repair Cloud's software and each of them has a story like this: they pushed past fear and conquered self-doubt to build an incredible future.
If one or more of these thoughts sounds familiar to you, you may be operating from a fear-based mentality:
- “Nothing ever works out for me”
- “I’ve always been unlucky in X”
- “I’m so bad at X... I won’t bother trying it again”
- “I’m good at X, but I should be better. What’s wrong with me?”
- “I looked really stupid back there. I’ll never put myself in that situation again”
When you tell yourself a story repeatedly, eventually, you begin to believe it. However, your past does not determine your future. Your current actions and behaviors determine what happens next.
How Do Credit Heroes Overcome the Fear of Success?
No one can guarantee success, but you can guarantee failure by avoiding the steps to success. Here are three steps top credit repair business owners used to overcome their fear of making it big that you can follow, too:
1. Recognize what fear of success looks in your life. When you recognize fear of success you can decide whether to listen to it or keep going. Fear of success can be hard to identify because fear often disguises itself as something else.
2. Practice taking risks. There’s no doubt that credit repair business owners take risks. Read this article to see the top 10 risks that millionaire credit repair business owners regularly practice.
3. Lean on the wisdom of those who’ve gone before. There’s no need to feel like you’re embarking on a solo voyage to your dream life. When you sign up for Credit Repair Cloud as your business software, you gain access to hundreds of hours of training and a community of credit repair business owners –– some of whom are making millions in their businesses.
Many people with stories just like yours took a risk and learned how to face and manage their fears.
Learn how to start a credit repair business today with our free training and take your first step toward reaching your dreams!
