Do you ever find that you don't make decisions because of fear? It can happen in both your personal life and in business. Maybe you are super unhappy with your job and you don't like what you're doing. You just stay stuck because you're afraid of the unknown. You're afraid of whether or not you’ll make it doing something else. You could be fearful that if all of a sudden, miraculously, you leave your job and then your boss just all of a sudden turns into the best boss ever and the company changes.
That's not what usually happens in life. Yet still, many times we stay stuck, right where we are. We don't take action. A day becomes a week, a week becomes a month, a month becomes a year, a year becomes 10 years. The cost of inaction can be massive.
The Cost of Inaction
I have experienced the consequences of waiting too long. It cost me a significant amount of something. Sometimes money, sometimes time or resources. For example, when I first started coaching, I didn’t take the plunge and do it until years after I initially wanted to. When I initially wanted to, there was nobody talking about using video. Nobody was even speaking of those things when I first started to want to become a real estate coach. However, because I was afraid, I waited a couple years and all of a sudden when I launched, well, guess what? People talking about doing video and how important social media was with your business as a real estate agent completely. It was all over the place.
The price I paid was losing money, losing time that I could’ve built my brand, and missing out on business. It would have been easier for me to succeed if I’d started when I really wanted to instead of waiting. Don't let fear hold you back. In fact, fear is one of the biggest things that holds entrepreneurs, business owners, and all kinds of people back as they're afraid of the unknown and messing up. You need to think like this: What if it does work? What if you’re happier? What if it goes amazingly well?
Analyze where those fears come from. One of my mentors said this, “When you're thinking about a change or you want to do something in life, think about what's the worst possible thing that could ever happen.” Often when you do that, you say “Okay, that's not so bad. That's not so bad after all.”
Fear: Risk and Reward
When I wanted to switch from real estate to coaching, I was doing over a million dollars in gross commissions earned as a real estate agent. I told my family who love me very much and support me and want me to do well. I said, “Guess what, guys? I'm going to go and be a real state coach.” And they were like, “Not a good idea, Krista. Nobody's going to pay you to be their coach. And normal people who are making over a million dollars a year in real estate commissions, don't change and do something different.” I almost listened to them.
Because I was afraid. I was afraid what if it didn't work and I had spent all these years building up my real estate name and selling thousands of homes and in the top 1% of realtors nationwide. I thought of all the what-ifs. When I still did it anyway, It didn't come easy. I had to work my butt off. I almost lost everything. In fact, when the pandemic hit, we were at a six week burn rate. But guess what? It's working now. Now we're able to do in a month, what we used to do in a year and even more. In just a four year timeframe, I took the risk, put in that hard work and was adaptable.
Now we're able to transform thousands of lives. I absolutely am the happiest I've ever been in my career. And it's all because I didn't let fear hold me back. The worst thing ever is fear. It's that thing that says, “Stay comfortable. Stay where you are.” Well, here's the thing. All the good stuff happens outside your comfort zone. Behind every fear is an opportunity. What are you afraid of and what are you going to do about it?
