Posted by Dave Lorenzo - Business Coach

Yesterday we discussed The Fear of the Unknown and its effect on business performance.  Over the course of the next four days we will look specifically at the Five Irrational Fears that many Entrepreneurs and Small Business Owners face.

Today we are going to examine The Fear of Commitment.

Like each of us, you have a strong desire to do what you say you are going to do. The psychological need for your actions to match your words drives you to follow through on whatever commitments you make. That type of commitment implies hard work, and you’d rather not commit than compromise your integrity by failing to keep your word. This is especially true when you make a commitment to yourself.

The psychology of commitment is a mental Catch-22. Your impulse to keep your word – make your commitment come true - is so great that it causes you to avoid making commitments.
 
There are two ways to overcome this fear of commitment. The first is to contrast possibility with probability. If it is probable that you will accomplish the task at hand, then you should be able to make the commitment.

A quick conversation with your Business Coach can help you break through this barrier.  Your coach will help you see the difference between possibility and probability. 

The second way to tackle this fear is to view a large commitment as a series of smaller commitments. This is the one-day-at-a-time philosophy that has proved so successful in helping people break addictions. Your short-term concern is meeting your goal today. Before you know it, your days turn into months and your months turn into years. Each day of success becomes positive reinforcing behavior. In the process, the basis of your fear becomes familiar and is no longer a threat.

Your coach can help you break through this barrier by helping you break your goals down into manageable pieces.  You’ll approach each goal one step at a time.  Before you know it you’ll have accomplished some major tasks by taking simple steps.

Filed under: Attitude

No Responses »

No comments yet.

RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URI

Leave a comment

Line and paragraph breaks automatic, e-mail address never displayed, HTML allowed: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <code> <em> <i> <strike> <strong>

Name (required)

E-mail (required)

URI

Your Comment