Work At Home Challenges: The Fear Factor

My brother-in-law is in the process of starting a home business. In fact, he’s been in the process of starting it for over 2 years now.

It seems that Bill (that’s not really his name, but I don’t want to embarrass him), is afraid to take the big step.

He wasn’t afraid to take the first step. He’s taken lots of steps. He’s going to be selling a product, so he’s done some really important (and expensive) groundwork like designing his product, testing it, getting a patent, getting a business license, setting up his accounting procedures and even designing his website.

Bill spent a lot of time on his website (he’s a bit of a perfectionist). I’ve offered to get him up and running on the web, submit it to the search engines, and basically handle the website administration for him.

About 2 months ago, his site was all set and I’ve been waiting for his go ahead to “go live” ever since. Whenever I ask him if he’s ready, he has a vague reason for not going ahead: “I need to make more of model x” or “I’ve decided to redesign a few things on the website”.

It has become clear to me that Bill is afraid of failure (or even his own success).

This is an all to common situation among would-be business owners. Let’s face it– it’s a pretty scary thing to be completely responsible for your own livelihood. In fact, this fear is often the one thing that keeps a person from realizing their dream of having a home business.

There are some good reasons to be nervous, too. The Small Business Administration estimates that 33% of small businesses fail within the first year, 50% fail within the second year and 60% to 70% will fail within their first five years of operation.

People have all kinds of reasons that keep them from starting a business:

• They’re afraid they’ll lose money
• They’re afraid of what their family and friends will think of them if they fail.
• They’re fearful of the enormous responsibility that comes with owning a business.
• They think it’s too hard, or that they don’t have enough time.

But should we really let fear come between us and our dreams? Nearly ten years ago, when I was starting my first home business, I learned that I have tremendous strength within me– whether I knew it or not. I also made an effort to seek out people who were successful and learn from them. Ivan Widjaya of Noobpreneur.com said in a recent blog post, “Surround yourself with people that are motivators and mentors. ‘Lean’ yourself to them, and let their guidance turns your fear into energy to succeed.”

And lots of people *are* successful. Why shouldn’t Bill be one of the ones who succeeds? I believe that he has it in him to be successful, but he just has to get past the fear factor and take that next step.

And if you’re planning to start a home business then do your homework, find something that you feel passionate about, plan your business, but don’t let fear keep you from achieving your goals.

Tags: Home Business, work at home challenges