Happy Halloween!
We’ve already talked about how public speaking and resigning can be scary so since we’re on the scariest day of the day – except for the first day of school I guess – another thing that people often fear in a work or career sense is their ability to keep their job.
These day, people are often especially worried about making a mistake at work thinking that it could negatively affect their ongoing employment with the firm and who knows, maybe it could.
Maybe they think that taking their (entitled) vacation will somehow look bad if business isn’t going so well.
In a work setting, people often fear failing in front of their peers, their boss and their boss’s boss. I recall feeling this same thing earlier in my career when taking part in something important that could impact my standing and reputation in the company.
Typically, I’d do the work and it would turn out just fine and later on I’d wonder why I was so worried in the first place.
You might find yourself procrastinating and putting off work that you would otherwise have done right away if you weren’t feeling so concerned. You put something off until the last minute hoping that it will disappear before then and end up doing it as late as possible just to get it done and out of the way.
We’ve probably all taken part in the so-called all nighter back in school where you wait until the last minute to finish a project and stay up all night doing it. Part of it might be procrastination or laziness but sometimes the fear of failure can also take hold. You figure that by not making a decision you can’t possibly fail but eventually you run out of time and just have to do it at the last minute.
In my experience, the only time I’ve ever really feared work was earlier in my career when I was with a company that I simply hated working for. I actually dreaded going to work each day and felt better as I left the office at night and walked home. I realized pretty quickly that this situation was not a good one and that nothing was going to make it better so I ended up quitting.
Sometimes you have to cut bait and that’s what I did.
