“You have to do whatever scares you the most. It’s the only thing that will save you.”  ~ Dodger (China Beach)

Finding work you love most often involves assessing what you love to begin with. This is a great place to start, but I also want you to consider what you fear doing.

Take a couple of minutes to write a list of everything you fear doing and when you come back I’ll tell you how you can use this information.

The premise of that exercise is that you are likely to find a great deal of satisfaction in what you resist doing! So, take a look at your list. Some of the items may not have relevance to career – but they are still useful so don’t discard them.

Let’s say our hypothetical list includes the following:

  • public speaking
  • sky-diving
  • spiders
  • swimming in deep water
  • being unemployed/losing my job

Now, we sort our list into 2 lists – career-related and not.

Career-related:

  •  public speaking
  • being unemployed/losing my job

Not career-related:

  • sky-diving
  • spiders
  • swimming in deep water

 This is useful, since I highly doubt our fear of spiders will lead us to a career path of spider-wrangling! :-)

So, what can we determine from our fears of public speaking and unemployment? Why are we resisting these activities? What benefit could we get from doing these activities?

Taking public speaking as an example, how could you benefit from sharing your thoughts and ideas with many people? How would these people benefit from hearing your thoughts and ideas? What’s holding you back from doing this? After all, public speaking may not only be satisfactory, but even thrilling!

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For the fear of being unemployed or losing your job, ask yourself the above questions. Can you see how this fear could lead you to consider starting your own business? For one thing – you’d never be unemployed! The fear may also motivate you to succeed in your new business.

If both of these are on your list, could you envision a career as a motivational speaker? How would this change your life?

Basing a career solely on your fears may not be the best option as resistance to it may cause you to avoid it altogether. However, adding that element as an activity in a career based on what you love may inject yet another element of excitement – taking you above and beyond what you would ordinarily consider doing.

In anything we do, stepping outside of our comfort zone has a great deal to do with our level of success. Facing our fears requires us to step out of our comfort zones and expand our concept of who we are and what we are capable of. Whether or not you embrace incorporating a fear into your ideal work, addressing the fears on your list will expand you and your capabilities.

Take one of the fears on your list and commit to taking a step towards addressing it this week!

Success and joy,

Keena

PS: If you are ready to find the most direct way to your soul-fulfilling career, please visit Career Realignment.

Photo: Sheila Allen, Flickr, Creative Commons Lic.

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