What’s holding you back?

In a meeting, you want to say something, you hold it back.
You have an exciting idea on how to solve a problem. You shared, no one seemed to care. You back out.
There is an exciting opportunity right in front of you, you are tempted but you stay put.
….

Does it sound familiar? What would you do if you weren’t afraid? For me, it’s a long list of stories of fear or worries.

Story 1: Imposter syndrome at its worst

Context:

• I was born in a little village with no electricity. We moved into a big city when I was six.
• My dad’s biggest dream was that his children could go to school and finish high school. My mom was a cleaning staff in a 2-star hotel when I was in high school and she took on two additional part time jobs in order to send my brother and I to college.
• I love love love reading ever since I was a little girl but we couldn’t afford to buy books except for a couple in a year.

Problem:
Despite how much I love reading and how little we could afford to buy books, I was afraid to walk into a public library and borrow books!!! I didn’t overcame my fear until I was in college!

That’s crazy! You may think. Yes, it IS crazy when I look back at those early days of my life. What was I thinking?! Why? I could have learned and grown so much more If I took the step and just walked into the public libraries.

Why the struggle?
It was my imposter syndrome at its worst. I felt like a little barbarian girl from stone age, and that I did not deserve to use libraries like any others who grew up in the city. I felt like I did not belong and I was less worthy.

This may sound like an extreme case to you. But have you found yourself in a similar mindset? You didn’t do something because you felt like you didn’t deserve something or that you didn’t belong because of who you are, where you came from, you are new to the company, you are different, etc. etc.

Takeaway:
It took me 12 years (from 6 years old to 18 years old) to finally get over my baggage (where I was born and my family’s lack of education). The baggage totally seems ridiculous when looking back, but it was so real and so heavy for me back then. If there was one thing that I could change for things that happened in the past, this would be it: to tell the younger me that it’s ok, you totally deserve it, and that you should just go after things that you are passionate about.

Actions you can take:

• Identify your fear: ask yourself what’s your baggage, what’s making you say no or not doing things that you really want to do, because what happened in the past, because of who you are. What’s holding you back? Acknowledge your fears.
• Find an ally: share your thoughts, share your desire and your fears. Have them help you validate or invalidate your thoughts.

Story 2: Fear of the unknown (switching career path)

Context:

• I was happily working as a Product Designer, performing well.
• I just found out my 2-year old had autism and life had been quite challenging on a daily basis.
• I learned to realize that I need to prioritize my own happiness over other things.

Problem:
My manager asked me: do you want to be a manager?

Why the struggle?
I had lots of fear about this change:

• Will I be happy as a manager?
• Will this change add more stress to my already stressful life as a working parent with a special need child?
• Can I perform well, aka, will I fail?
• Do I belong? Am I the “management type”? How about my fear of public speech and me as an introvert?

Solution?
This took quite some soul hunting, and with help from a coach.

• To help me find out what truly makes me happy at work (which was really important for me), the coach asked me to close my eyes and take my time to look back in the past five years and looked for my happy moments. Through that process, I discover my true happiness came from my past teaching experience where I saw growth from my students. All those time, I thought design great products was THE thing that made me happy. Self discovery was not easy for me. It took me quite some time to finally realize the new career path actually aligns much closer with what truly drives me.
• To help me overcome my fears, she asked me to look back and find past experiences where I tried something brand new that I was afraid of. Through that process, I realized I actually had done it multiple times!

How about you? Have you spend time to really dig into what truly drives you? Can you try looking into your own past journey and find evidence from the past to give you the courage and confidence to say: “hey, it’s ok to try new things”?

Story 3: Fear of commitment and failure

Context:

• Through my soul hunting process, I was writing down a short list of things that really matter to me and make me happy, including teaching, coaching, and helping the underprivileged communities.
• When I saw an internal post about Facebook University for Product Design, I jumped and took the opportunity to help lead the program as a Product Design lead. It’s rare to have an opportunity that maps to multiple things on my short list!

Problem:
The moment I “got the job”, I literally freaked out. I had ABSOLUTELY no idea how to do it!

Why the struggle?
I was having lots of self doubts. I was afraid of failing, disappointing my own expectations, disappointing others, looking like a fool in front of everyone and screwed up…

• I knew how to teach design in college — I taught design full time for 3.5 years before. But teaching non-design students to learn design in 8 weeks and at the end hoping some will be qualified to join FB as full time designer? Is it really going to work? Is it really possible?
• I had no experience running any program at company level before this. Am I going to make myself a fool? Am I going to fail everyone? Do I even know where to start?
• I already had a pretty full plate in my day job as a Product Design manager. Will I even have the time and energy to plan, design, and run this scary new massive program?

Solution?

• I gathered all the courage I had in me, and just did it. When you are truly passionate about something and there’s an opportunity right in front of you, just do it, don’t wait until you have all the skills. You can learn and grow along the process. It’s ok.
• I broke down the massive program into multiple pieces and tackled them one by one.
• I reached out to the community and asked for help. There is no way I could do it all. I leveraged heavily on my partners who have run company-level programs. I recruited a small planning committee to help me plan together.
• I focused on things where I could bring unique value as a PD manager that has full time design teaching experiences.

Takeaway for you?

Think big. You may not know how you’re going to get there, but that’s okay.

What are your stories? How did you overcome your own worst fears? And, what did you do this year that you were afraid of before?