What are women most afraid of?

Empowering Women | Self Confidence | How To Believe In Yourself

The focus for March is emotions. And although I’m a bit late to the (International Women’s Day party), I still think it is worth to look a bit at one of the biggest roadblocks and sometimes also drivers of why we change (or don’t want to change): the feeling of fear.

Fear can be a driver, fear can be a long-time companion, and fear can also be an obstacle between you and your next step. Be it in your career or your private life, you’ll come across it all the time. On the occasion of International Women’s Day (shouldn’t it be every day?), let’s have a look at what women are (often) afraid of and how they can conquer their fears.

Please note that the following points are only a choice of a long list of fears and I also know that it is hard to generalise the feeling of fear. So please keep an open mind when reading the following points and see them as suggestions and not set in stone. There might be even a bit of provocation in it. 😉

Their Employer

Women represent half of the workforce and they are often the main caregiver when it comes to children. Before having them, the fear already starts. What will my employer think of me? Will my salary decrease? Can I juggle a career and motherhood? A survey by the London Business School revealed that 70 % of women felt anxious about taking a career break. I’ll let you imagine what effects this has on their performance and willingness to take risks. To clarify, it’s not only about taking a career break to raise children, it’s also about taking a career break to take a time out, travel, volunteer or look after older family members.

Supported by The Rockefeller Foundation, the Thomson Reuters Foundation wanted to find out more about the key challenges that women faced at work. Findings show that 47 % of women across G20 countries believed that having children wasn’t damaging for their career. There are huge differences between the countries, though. In Brazil, 74% of the respondents said that a child wouldn’t damage their career whereas in Germany only 21% of the women chose the same answer. The fear is real.

Other Women

It’s very often the elephant in the room and nobody wants to touch upon this topic. But it’s a fact, women are often the biggest critics of other women. As an #IamRemarkable facilitator, I also often hear this from my participants. Especially when it comes to self-promotion or talking about one’s achievements, women will be always perceived as “braggers” – by both men and women. There’s also scientific evidence for this in case you’re looking for some hard facts. After all, it’s a very emotional topic as well.

The “amplification strategy” used by female staffers of the Obama administration is an excellent way to combat the anti-self-promotion tendency. It’s as simple as this: “When a woman made a key point, other women would repeat it, giving credit to its author. This forced the men in the room to recognize the contribution — and denied them the chance to claim the idea as their own.”

Got it? Share this piece of guidance with your female colleagues and use it at your next meeting! It’s more powerful than an 8th March greeting card and flowers.

Success

Yes, you read it correctly. Women fear success. It’s a consequence of the previous points. Imagine that you live with a constant fear of being judged – the natural reaction is to keep a low profile and to not try to make yourself too noticeable. You might be afraid of the attention that you’d get once you have more success and climb the career ladder. It’s not all bad out there, but this is how many working women feel. The higher the fear of success, the higher the discouragement from competing for the achievements. This is just one of the findings from the article “Fear of Success on Women's Career Development: A Research and Future Agenda”.

Themselves

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.” (Marianne Williamson)

It might seem contradictory or even schizophrenic, but it is what it is. We’re afraid of ourselves and our potential. What would happen if we took that next step? What would happen if we really tapped into our talents, our dreams, our passions? What are we afraid of?

Do you see yourself or another person you know in this article? If you can relate to it, you might want to send the following quote to your friend, sister, mother, daughter. And it would also look great on a Post-it on your computer. It’s a daily reminder to believe in yourself, to not give up on yourself.

“What if I fall? Oh, but my darling, what if you fly?” (Erin Hanson)

Happy International Women’s Day, every day!