Fear of failure is stomping my big dream

You can love your work, hate your work, or tolerate it for the sake of having a stable career and a reasonable paycheck. Those who belong to the first category are very small in number. Very often, they are pioneers and trailblazers who have carve a niche of their own. A decade back, when I started off my content writing career, I wanted to be a part of the first category. 10 years into the profession, I do love what I do and am passionate about all things content writing. But I still haven’t been able to love it to the fullest and gel completely into the first category. So where do I fit in? I belong to that narrow space between first and third categories. Wondering why? I still have a long-cherished dream to pursue; my dream is to start a business of my own.

Content writing is my forte and my dream is to start a company that provides genuine and plagiarism-free content. However, I keep pushing my entrepreneurial ambition aside all the time. Fear of failure is holding me back and stopping me from diving in.  Over the years, I had the chance to meet some good mentors who have created significant and measurable impact on my life and career. I am well aware that all the ground makers out there, who made a real difference, started off in the simplest manner, took the risk, and scaled up with genuine hard work, passion, and hope. But I am completely monopolized by the fear of failing.

It generates a strong feeling of uncertainty that overpowers my mind and paralyzes it from taking any action. In case if I fail, I have nothing to fall back on. Absolutely nothing! I am scared of losing a cushy job and a dependable income that helps fend for myself and my family. I haven’t yet made too many connections to pitch my idea.  I don’t have the money to bootstrap. And I don’t have a bigwig’s back. How will I start out and stay afloat? I am not able to trust my gut and am forced to play safe.

I have read countless articles that educate on various ways to transform my fears into motivations. But I still haven’t amassed the courage to apply what I have read into real life. It takes substantial amount of time and generous amount of money to setup and successfully run a business. But what if I fail? Failure sucks and the impact will be much higher if I bootstrap and have no money left after a misstep. After a failed entrepreneurial stint, I won’t be able to get back into a fulltime job easily. I live in a society where failure is viewed as negative, and the opposite of success. Rather than motivating me for finding out those “10,000 ways that won’t work”, I will be repeatedly told that I have miserably failed.

Will I ever be able to overcome my fear, forge ahead, and pursue my dream?

‘Active Status’ in LinkedIn Messaging – An interesting new feature (and On by default)

With no grand announcement LinkedIn just unrolled a new feature called ‘Active Status’. It’s a hollowed out green circle that shows when you are online and available to chat through LinkedIn Messaging. If there is no green circle, the connection is either not active or has disabled the ‘Active Status; feature. This might sound simple but has the power to significantly change the way you use the professional networking platform. It can also put you in trouble for not being able to keep your job search private.

With ‘Active Status’ feature for desktop and mobile app, your LinkedIn contacts can see if you are online and available to message. The feature is quite similar to the one on Skype. Messaging features are widely used on most online platforms. But messaging on LinkedIn was not that frequent in the past. But the new feature might improve the amount of messaging on LinkedIn, helping many users, particularly the large number of candidates and recruiters out there. Eventually it might also make LinkedIn more engaging.

If you want to keep tab on active users like recruiters and HR Heads, you might appreciate this feature, but if you are not keen, you can turn it off anytime. ‘Active Status’ is on by default, but you can turn it off anytime. Most of us are quick to turn off chat on Facebook. What about LinkedIn messaging?

LinkedIn messaging might enhance communication but ‘Active Status’ might also alert the innumerable number of overzealous message senders out there. Hence, it’s better to shut off the feature if you don’t want your contacts to know that you are online.

Here is how you can turn off the feature:

Source - ZNet

The LinkedIn Help page has adequate details on how to turn Active Status in LinkedIn Messaging off or on.