Boost your chances by overcoming them.
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Why is it that some men in midlife find themselves being depressed or behaving in a manner that could be labeled “Midlife Crisis?”
Is it that they are stuck because of stubbornness, ignorance or situations beyond their control?
While it could be any or all of the above, I believe these three reasons need consideration:
1. Fear of the failure
2. Fear of loss
3. Fear of rejection
These fears even though similar in nature to those in other stages of life, have different meanings for men at the midlife stage.
At midlife, the lens through which men look tend to create an exaggeration. The future looks scarier. Time seems to be running out.
The past looks more like a waste especially when there is not much to point at as accomplishments.
These two sights stirs the fears mentioned above and causes men to feel stuck. They are caught between the sight of the past and the sight of the future. They are stagnated. They are confused.
I realized that it wasn’t about overcoming these fears.
I needed to learn to let them work for me and not against me.
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That’s where I was when I hit this stage of life. I too was stagnated, confused and stuck.
Until …
I learned how to normalize these fears. I realized that it wasn’t about overcoming them. I needed to learn to let them work for me and not against me.
I realized that if I was going to make a career change or pursue my dream, now was the time. Time was of an essence. I had to learn to embrace these fears and “do it anyway.”
You too can do the same by understanding these three fears.
1. Fear of the failure
This fear is huge. Failure portrays itself as a giant. Failure wants you to believe that you need to defeat it. In an attempt to do so, you expend most of the energy needed to normalize it.
How do you normalize it?
Forgive me if this seems or sound simple because it is. It might not be easy, but it is simple.
See failure as informing rather than opposing. Failure informs us that we need to use an alternate approach. What we have used so far hasn’t worked.
We also need to redefine failure as an event that has resulted from a series of steps. These steps need to be revisited and modified to get an alternate result. It’s highly recommended that outside help be secured to offset making the same mistakes.
This shift in mindset will be one way of normalizing the fear of failure.
2. Fear of loss
This fear is a monster. Why?
Most of your adult life is wrapped up in your accomplishment. You have made choices and decisions that has led to your current experiences. To make a major change means letting go of what you know, even though you’re miserable, for the unknown.
To confront this fear, we need to begin with these questions: What if you were laid off or got fired from your current job? What if that company ceased to exist? If either happened, wouldn’t it mean you now have a loss on your hand? Wouldn’t you have to find a way to navigate through this loss?
What if you were to confront the fear of loss by clarifying what your response could be, and then embed those responses in your mind? By doing this you would have a plan of action should the worse case scenario occurred.
With these responses in hand, you are now in a position to pursue your dream with less stress. This would subside the fear of loss.
3. Fear of rejection
This fear is somewhat similar to that of loss. Rejection is not something that we as men do well. We are hesitant to attempt something especially if the chance of success isn’t high. This fear can be paralyzing.
The message we associate with rejection is that we are not as capable as we thought we were. We see ourselves as a failure or a loser. To avoid being thought of in this manner, we play it safe by staying put.
This fear also has another fear attached: the fear of ejection. We fear that we’ll be ejected from certain groups we belong to because we have lost the status we once had.
Holding on to what we currently have seem safer. This is where the phrase “good becoming the enemy of the best” becomes apparent.
What if you were to take on the mindset that states: If I’m rejected or ejected because of pursuing my dream, then those who would do so, is not worthy of me—now. By embracing this mindset, you could make your career decision, with one less fear to overcome.
These three fears are not the only ones you’ll experience but overcoming them will give you an enormous boost in pursuing your dream.
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Photo: WoodleyWonderWorks/Flickr
i think fear of success is also a problem, i fear less about failure than i would do about if i were successful. This could come under rejection as i would be worried that when successful my success would be questioned, its validity challenged. Being failure is also much easier work than being a success. Once a success then we need to maintain it. Just my thoughts 🙂
Hey Gordon,
Thanks for sharing your thoughts. It’s an interesting take that you have outlined. Those are possible risks that will come either way. Your failure would also be questioned and a no-ending stream of assumptions would prevail. Wouldn’t it be better to have the questions and assumptions on the side of success?