Don’t let angsts fetter your career success

There is only one thing that makes a dream impossible to achieve and that is your angst. Everybody is bound to be plagued with apprehensions that tend to restrain you in some way or the other. You could even be hampered from embarking upon a career that you always thought about or finding a job of your dreams.  

Your angsts are only as profound as your mind perceives them to be. If you take fear, face it and replace it, confidence is what you will derive. Most of your obstacles would simply disappear if rather than cringing before them, you decide to go through them.

What are various angsts that generally hound people in their careers? They are:

· Angst of inability to be flawless: In our quest for success, we strive excessively to be flawless and impeccable. We tend to suffer from a zero-error syndrome. If you liberate yourself of your desire to be flawless and instead goad yourself to keep advancing in your career and life, you will find that you become more dynamic. You will become more venturesome and enterprising. You will realise that taking a short step forward is much better than standing still or stagnating. It should be remembered that perfectionism is not the same thing as striving to be our best. It is also not about healthy achievement and growth; in fact, it is a screen that restrains you from moving ahead. Therefore, you should never let your inability to be flawless become an excuse for never getting started. That is why they say that it is better to be a diamond with a flaw than a pebble without. What you need to do is to take your foot out in the right direction and earnest.

· Angst of botching: Any apprehensions about botching in your work are difficult to overcome for evident reasons. But if you display confidence to not succumb to it, you are likely to achieve more. Most of us have grown up steadily and explicitly trying to succeed in all our ventures. All along, the negativity of failure has been spoken about at length and that perhaps has led us to always find middle ground and thus avoid botching up. But the fact is that an angst of botching up will serve to do only one thing – hold you back. It prevents you from realising your dreams of success. The possible consequences of botching notwithstanding, the fact is that they are only temporary alterations to our course towards success. If you do not suffer failures, how will you know what is wrong? Therefore all failures are keys to success because each of them teaches us something. In the context of your career, it is your fear of botching that holds you back from applying for a job. And when you are in one, you do not take initiative for the same reason. In order to overcome such angst, you should try to visualise various outcomes, including the most horrible one that could possibly happen. That in no way amounts to being pessimistic; on the contrary, if indeed it does take place, you would not be taken by surprise. In this way, you will not suffer any remorse.

· Angst of giving up: When people look down upon others who give up, they do not realise that if someone quits after weighing the pros and cons, there is nothing more great than that. There is no harm in quitting if you understand that the task per se has an inherent drop and that the end-result will not be of much consequence. Most of us harbour this feeling that if you have been through with something for long, it is should be taken to its conclusion. But when you appreciate that the chances of success in doing something are bleak, you will get to comprehend that the efforts being put in by you are a waste of time. And if that happens if you have lost your interest in it, you are likely to suffer great disappointment. In the light of the foregoing, where is the need to carry on with things that have little chances of success or that fail to inspire you? Let not the angst of giving up bother you at all. You have to go back a little to leap further.

Angst in any form will stifle your thinking and actions. It will generate uncertainty for you and cause you to stagnate. Therefore, it is essential that you do not let your fears get to have the better of you. Even if you end up botching, so what? The most important battle in your life is the battle between pluck and fear. And in this war, there has to be only one champion and that champion is you. If you get subdued by angsts, ant-like issues will appear like elephant-type problems. But if you pause to look angst straight into its eyes, you will gain strength, courage and confidence to embark upon a path that you think thought was difficult.