I saw a meme last week that said, “If you want to fail, just keep doubting yourself.”

Kind of harsh I guess, but after coming off an amazing weekend at the JillFit Business Retreat and speaking with 90 female fitness entrepreneurs, I know that this is hot button for a lot of us.

It’s natural to feel anxiety whenever we’re trying something new, but the combination of Impostor Syndrome + fear of failure + worry over how others see us can be crippling.

So crippling that we continue not taking the action on the things we say we want.

And I don’t know about you, but after a while, not making progress on the things I say I want gets old!

So how to we overcome these fears?

Today I want to share with you 3 tools I’ve used to start engaging with the scary stuff, even when I am not 100% sure (which is basically all the time!) and when I’m worried I’m doing it all wrong ;)

One mental reframe that has helped me tremendously is realizing that we are all the same.

Byron Katie says there are no new stories. And I think she’s right: the “story” of insecurity is universal. I’ve met people all over the confidence spectrum, and typically, the most confident ones have simply had the most experiences and/or wins in that specific area, or they’ve just been doing it longer so understand the ups and downs better.

When starting something new—a new job, new business venture, leaving a job, starting a new relationship, mourning a loss, beginning on a new health regimen, etc.—no one is 100% secure. How could they be, when they have zero experience with it?

To me, insecurities and fears are normal. And when I remember that we all have them, it puts all of us on an even playing field. It helps me realize, “Why not me?” Someone else has been here, and they were able to make it work, so why couldn’t I?

We are all the same. And just like our insecurities are alike, our potential is, too. I can see someone else killing and use it as a reaffirmation of what it’s possible for me too. I don’t feel threatened by those doing well, I feel inspired. We all start somewhere. Fears and insecurities are universal.

And the way to move through them is to …

Ha! Easier said than done!

But confidence is area-specific. Makes sense, right? I can feel confident as a personal trainer after training clients for 10 years, but I am terrified of publishing a blog on the internet because … am I a good enough writer? Do I even have anything worthwhile to say? Who am I to do this? Will people judge me? Criticize me?

It’s a whole new ballgame.

BUT, the way we get comfortable and confident doing anything new is by doing it more. It’s funny now to even remember the fears I had when I started blogging at JillFit 6 years ago. It all feels so small and silly, even though at the time the fears were real.

Confidence builds with a show of evidence that you have experience with something and you have become better at it. You actually see yourself doing it more, accumulate more wins and over time, your confidence grows to the point that you begin taking even more action. Your competency grows, too.

But don’t feel like you have to start with huge leaps and bounds. Begin with one small change.

For me, in 2010, it was asking my then-boss if I could take a pay cut to spend more time doing my JillFit business. I was scared! What if I couldn’t do it? What if I went broke? What if my boss didn’t want me doing JillFit? What if I failed? What if people thought I was crazy?

But I managed to harness that teeny bit of confidence to take action. After that small action step, I took the next one. I built the JillFit business by saying yes one opportunity at a time. I said yes to staying up until 1am writing meal plans and workout programs, I said yes to overloading myself in the name of building my confidence as an online fitness coach.

Two years later—after much action even in the face of not knowing what I was really doing, ha!—I make the decision to quit my full-time job, as scary as it would be to give up those bi-weekly checks.

You don’t have to take all the action steps right now, but you definitely have to take the first one. You don’t get to step #2 without going through step #1.

In my experience, most people avoid picturing the worst case scenario. It either makes them feel like they’re being pessimistic, or (as was the case for me) their perfectionist tendencies are so strong that the idea of not succeeding is too scary to even consider.

But over the last 6 years with JillFit, one of the most useful truths I’ve discovered is that failures are inevitable. Not final failures, but certainly tech mishaps, painful struggles, embarrassing snafus and mistakes in ideas and directions.

I learned that challenges are inevitable, there will always be a string of them so long as I am moving. And the key has been removing my attachment to it meaning that I am somehow “bad” or “wrong” or “not good enough.”

So when I am scared to take action on something new, I always mentally picture the version where I fall flat on my face. And it doesn’t scare me anymore, but instead inspires me to take greater and more well-informed action. I am able to see all angles and get a hold on what I would do if any of it transpired.

If the worst case came to pass, how would I deal? Would I be okay? What’s one thing I could do to get me back to zero?

When I know the answers to these questions, I feel free to take more action because I trust myself enough to handle whatever happens.

I try my best and then detach from the outcomes. I feel good knowing I did my best and then I let the chips fall. I will learn from all of it, grow as a result and try again. Resiliency is being perfected struggle after struggle.

I have a lot of big plans for JillFit in the next year, and though most of them terrify me right now, I trust the process and I trust myself. And everything else? I’ll figure that out when the time comes.

What is one move that you want to make in your life soon? I’d love to hear about it!

Click reply and put yourself on the hook by TELLING ME one thing that you’re going to be doing in the next year ;) Let’s be in it together.

Xo,

Jill

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P.S. Enrollment for my annual Best of You (BOY) mentorship for 2017 is right around the corner! It’s an 11-month coaching program for women who are interested in learning about online business—in the health/fitness space or otherwise—and want to take massive action to create a platform, add value and impact more people, and create products and services for clients at a distance. I’ll be sharing more about BOY over the next few months, but if you are interested in getting early info, please sign up for the BOY 2017 wait list HERE. More to come!