Does the Fear of Failure or Rejection Keep You on the Sidelines?

My Sunday newspaper, The Lake County News Herald always has such great supplements, and "Taking an Axe to Anxiety" written by Bob Lankard, a business columnist for the Indiana Gazette on July 15th was no exception as it gave me an idea for my own piece.

Lankard's piece was specifically in relation to the anxiety and stress that comes from the pursuit of employment, and how some people have a hard time bouncing back from the initial rejection. His sub-headline "The fear of rejection can sideline any job search. Put some of these moves into play to get back into the game" really caught my eye because even after reading his entire piece, I thought to myself, wow quite a bit of this applies to everyday life, and not just the pursuit of employment. It immediately set me to thinking about an "off shoot" piece of mine own, but so many thoughts came to mind that I needed a couple of days for the dust to settle, so to speak so I could organize them better. However, if you are in, or will be searching for a job, get your self a copy of Lankard's article, it is truly terrific and will give you some great ideas.

The more I thought about it, the more it became clear that basically the fear of failure can rule our lives at any stage or in any circumstance if we let it.

This became abundantly clear to me on January 3rd, 2005 when my employer of twenty five years decided they no longer needed my services anymore without any real reason given. I did get a very fair, and to my knowledge the largest departure agreement package they have ever given to anyone, which I am told the larger the package the deeper the guilt on their part, but thats water under the bridge.

The anxiety for me in the 35 minute ride home in driving, cold rain really was more about telling my wife and children without them having to worry that everything would be alright. The funny thing for me was the fact that for myself, I felt like the weight of the world had been lifted from my shoulders , and that the man upstairs was basically saying to me 'I'm tired of hearing you talk about making something happen, go out and do it."