I used to be an opera singer.

For many years my goal was to be a professional opera singer. 

I was doing all the things. Bi weekly voice lessons. I studied music theory and languages. I even learned to play piano… rather badly to be fair!

I belonged to an opera company and did regular shows. I was on the competition circuit and did pretty well. I won several scholarships for being a “promising classical performer.”

I even made money from it, singing at more weddings and funerals than anyone ever needs to go to!

But despite all signs pointing to a possible career in performing arts I had two overwhelming thoughts about it. 

I’ll never be good enough to succeed. 

What if I fail and all this work is for nothing. 

Not a mindset that I found particularly motivating. 

What it did do was create massive anxiety and perfectionism. And impatience. 

Every time I didn't win a role I thought I should have or saw someone else succeed, I told myself

“I’m never going to succeed.”

Every time I struggled with a song or didn't get the response I should have from an audience. 

“See, it's not working.”

So I stopped trying so hard. I stopped working on my voice outside of lessons. I stopped being prepared for rehearsals. I stopped even auditioning. 

The anxiety of thinking I might fail made practicing so uncomfortable that I avoided it. 

So I got no more roles. Won no more scholarships. I stopped progressing.

And eventually, I stopped doing anything musically related, because why bother if it wasn't going to work anyway.

I stopped doing the very things that contributed to my potential for success. 

The ONLY things that would actually create success. 

And so, of course it didn't work. I did fail to succeed.

You’re probably wondering what this has to do with you…

I see newer business owners doing exactly the same thing. 

When a social media post doesn't get the engagement you think it's supposed to. 

When you don’t sell as many places in your program or course as you wanted to.

When you’re struggling to sign clients. 

When it feels hard and there's so much fear of it not working.

What do you do? 

You procrastinate.  

Slow down.

Second guess yourself.

Stay stuck in frustration. 

And you stop doing all the things that will make success inevitable. 

Building a business takes a lot of resilience because things often don’t go the way we think they should, especially at first. 

But if you give up because you’re afraid to fail, then YOU guarantee your failure.

If you believed success was inevitable, what would you be willing to do?