156. Fear Inventory: A Strategic Tool to Get Unstuck and Move Forward
Big goals and bold changes often come with a surprising amount of resistance. Whether it’s a shift you know needs to happen or a dream you keep putting off, the tug of war between wanting to move forward and feeling frozen can leave you exhausted. That resistance isn’t a sign you’re unprepared or unmotivated; it’s fear doing its job of trying to keep you safe from uncertainty.
In this episode, I’m sharing a coaching tool called a fear inventory that helps you get unstuck, build confidence, and take aligned action on the things you’ve been avoiding. I walk you through how I’ve used this process to make some of my biggest business decisions, including shifting the podcast schedule, closing my design practice, and investing in new levels of support, and how this same strategy can help you move through your own pivotal moments with more ease and clarity.
You’ll learn how to identify what fear is really trying to protect you from, bring compassion to the process instead of judgment, and create internal safety so you can take action from self-trust rather than doubt. This tool isn’t about eliminating fear; it’s about shining a light on it so it no longer drives your decisions. The result is greater clarity, calm, and momentum toward the goals you actually want to achieve.
If you've been thinking about working with me one-on-one, be sure to get on the private coaching waitlist! Click here to learn more about Design to Thrive and secure your spot to be the first to know when availability opens up.
What You’ll Discover from this Episode:
How to identify where you’re stuck and recognize the specific ways fear shows up as procrastination, perfectionism, or overthinking.
Why addressing your fears directly is one of the best business strategies for making changes and expanding your capacity.
The step-by-step process for creating your own fear inventory to get clarity on what’s really holding you back.
How to write solutions for each fear that prove you’re capable of handling any challenge that comes your way.
Why looking at your fears actually prevents the things you’re afraid of from happening and becomes proactive business planning.
The difference between being strategically thoughtful and using overthinking to keep yourself stuck.
Quick questions to shift your perspective when you need immediate clarity on your next steps.
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124. Fear of Wasting Time: Why Withholding Effort Holds You Back
145. Stop Being So Hard on Yourself: The Power of Self-Compassion
155. Inside My Business: Decision-Making, Priorities, and Podcast Changes
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Full Episode Transcript:
Hey Designer, you're listening to Episode 156. In this one, I'm sharing a coaching tool I created that has helped me and my clients get unstuck, build confidence, and get into action with the big, bold goals that they have and the changes they know they're feeling called to make.
It's called a fear inventory, and this strategy is perfect for you if you have one of those big goals that I mentioned that really keep getting deferred, actions or decisions that you've been avoiding, or a change that you know you want to make, but you're just not doing it. In this episode, I'll walk you through how to complete your own fear inventory to get unstuck and get moving forward.
Welcome to The Interior Design Business CEO, the only show for designers who are ready to confidently run and grow their businesses without the stress and anxiety. If you're ready to develop a bigger vision for your interior design business, free up your time, and streamline your days for productivity and profit, you're in the right place.
I'm Desi Creswell, an award-winning interior designer and certified life and business coach. I help interior designers just like you stop feeling overwhelmed so they can build profitable businesses they love to run. Are you ready to confidently lead your business, clients, and projects? Let's go.
Hello Designer, welcome back to the podcast. It is the first episode following our new cadence of every other week. If you haven't listened to the last episode, it's number 155. I do encourage you to queue that up for later. I give a real behind-the-scenes look at my decision-making process around the podcast change, especially in relation to how I'm allocating resources in my business and thinking about the different elements of my marketing and how I spend my time and money, and of course, just mental bandwidth.
Today's topic is going to be all about creating a fear inventory and how that's a strategic planning move. This is especially important if you've had a feeling of something needs to shift, something needs to change, but you're feeling resistance to the change. And maybe it's a subtle feeling of knowing something's off, or you know exactly that change that you want to make. And maybe you're dreaming up plans for next year's and a bigger vision, and you're feeling that internal tug of war of I want to move forward, I want to move towards that vision, and I just can't seem to because there's some internal block. And that could definitely be for your business or in your life.
The concept of a fear inventory is directly related to that last episode that I mentioned, in how I used a fear inventory to make the change from my podcast to go from weekly to every other week. Making this shift with the podcast cadence was something that I knew that I wanted to do for a while and have been considering it, but I was really having trouble acting on that internal knowing and doing the actual steps that I needed to do to make the change, like sending that email to my podcast team, thinking about what would I do instead if I wasn't marketing every week this way, what else might I be doing, or do I want to do something different? Looking at this from a really holistic perspective.
And of course, there was the emotional component of, you know, I had a lot of self-doubt around whether it was the right move. So it was feeling like the right move, but then my mind chatter was quite loud around it. And really what that meant was a delayed decision, delayed action. It was this internal tug of war that was keeping me stuck. And it might seem like maybe not a big deal. I don't know. Maybe you can relate, maybe you can't, where, yeah, Desi, it's just every other week instead of once a week.
Yes, it looks like that from the outside, and even on the other side of it, I'm like, this is kind of a small change. But on the inside, it did feel like this big risk of doing something that was different from what I've been doing consistently for 3 years.
So there was a lot of wheel spinning that I had to coach myself through and beyond. And often, this is the case when we're wanting to make a change that we know is feeling right internally, but there is the fear and there is the doubt and the worry. And it becomes almost more comfortable to be in the worry and to be in the indecision than taking a bold action.
And I've of course felt this in many different ways, in many different iterations of the business, even just making the decision to close down my interior design practice and shift into joining a life coaching program or joining a mastermind to help grow the business, or hiring a new assistant. I mean, there's so many different ways that this shows up.
And if we don't address the fear or the flavor of fear, right? Sometimes fear is the self-doubt, the worry, the anxiety. It can feel a lot of different ways, but if we don't take a look at that and address it with a lot of compassion, it will prevent us from taking action and delay getting more of what you want or moving in the direction of more of what you know is right for you and your business.
As you listen to this episode, I want you to consider where you maybe feel stuck or maybe where you're feeling like you're dragging your feet in your interior design business, because I'm going to walk you through a process for what I call is the fear inventory. It's something that I use a lot in my business, whether that's for myself or with my clients. And we have to look at these fears, not in a way of we're not spinning in the fears or swimming in them, but we're shining a light on them. And it's really one of the best business strategies you can use when it comes to making changes, upleveling, and stretching your capacity and capability in your design business.
We think of, oh, we just need the plan, but we need to learn to trust ourselves in taking action towards that plan. I was recently in a yoga class and the instructor said, when a bird flies over to a tree, it's not trusting the tree's branch, it's trusting its own wings. I thought that was such a beautiful way to illustrate some of what we're talking about here today is creating that high level of self-trust to move beyond the anxiety, the self-doubt, the worry, and the fear. Because as entrepreneurs, we're always asking ourselves to wade into uncharted waters or go deeper than we have before.
And if you're listening to this podcast, I'm pretty sure you've got goals and you want to improve your business. And that is incredible, and it is part of your evolution as a person, but it's also challenging. And we need to name that and left uncheck, those emotions can really start to become your own roadblock towards the type of success that you want to create, and create a lot of self-sabotaging, avoiding the work, and making decisions and taking courageous action that is actually going to get you where you want to go.
So again, make sure you're thinking of an example for yourself of where you feel stuck. And of course, stuck can mean a lot of different things, but it could look something like avoiding thinking about taking some time to outline next steps or researching what you need to do. It could mean looping on the past, right? So it could be an avoidance of the future, but it also could very much be a adherence or clinging to the past. Maybe there was some past decision that you made that you're using against yourself now, or maybe a decision you didn't make that you wish you had, and that quote-unquote “failure” in however you look at that is creating a level of fear that is actually kind of creating fear of the future.
So it could also look like delaying or spinning on a decision, perfecting and tweaking over and over, spending more time doubting than doing. And a big one too to look out for in this stuckness is overthinking and over outsourcing, meaning outsourcing your business and your desires and decisions to other people who may or may not have the business that you want to have.
Now, often we think that overthinking is being responsible. And thoughtful thought processes are, yes, can be helpful and can be a responsible thing to do. And we also need to have the self-awareness of when it is actually you keeping yourself stuck versus being strategically thoughtful.
So now that you have that example in your head, you're going to do an inventory of your fears. With this example in mind, what you're going to do is you're going to grab a notebook or a Google Doc. And if you're driving or walking when you're listening to this, listen through and hear the process so it can start to lock in your brain. And then you can come back to this or look at the transcript.
So you're going to grab something that you can write with. And what you're going to do is when you think about the thing that you want to do or accomplish or become, you are going to write down every fear, doubt, and worry you have about the goal, decision, or action.
I'm going to give you some specific examples of how this works in just a little bit. But if we want to brainstorm what a lot of fears could possibly be or what those common ones are, usually it's around getting it wrong in some way, losing money or losing the business, maybe finding out that you're not as capable as you thought, maybe it's you won't be able to undo what you want to do or that you're going to have to redo something. A lot of times we have a fear of wasting time. I do have an episode on that. It's 124. It's called “Fear of Wasting Time.”
Maybe the fears are around people. So it could be your clients, a team member, your spouse, not liking your decisions or actions, or maybe even publicly speaking negatively about you, like a bad review in some way. Often, we fear looking “dumb,” I say that in quotations, or being embarrassed. I guarantee there is some emotion you're afraid to feel, and that is creating internal resistance. And of course, judgment. Judgment's a big one. We're fearing judgment from ourselves, going back to that getting it wrong, or judgment from others who might not have the same opinions or want what you want, or just not understand what you're doing.
The big thing here is you don't want to censor yourself. This is a list for no one but you. It doesn't matter if the fear feels silly or small or if it feels really big and true. I want you to put it on paper and get it out of your mind. The fears will swirl until you address them. So we want to make sure that we are making them visible in the light of day. This is how you address the root issue in your business. This is why often we can have all of the strategy you need through a podcast or a class you took or something like that, and you can't get out of your own way.
And that's because I like to think of this circle image, right? So if the fear starts at the top of the circle and you start following down the path, eventually, what you end up doing if there is that underlying emotional issue that needs to be addressed is you exit the circle. So the loop never gets closed. It's like constantly experiencing the worst, and then you don't ever get yourself to a point where it feels safe again. So a big part of creating this fear inventory is to create solutions, of course, but also it's about creating internal safety.
So once you have all those fears down on paper, I want you to just take a look at them. Sometimes we find, maybe they're not as bad as we thought they'd be. Sometimes we look at this list and we get a little overwhelmed. Like, I can't believe that is all happening inside my head. I think you know what I mean.
With all of this, give yourself heaps of self-compassion. We all get stuck from time to time, okay? And that is a big part of what I want to normalize here too, is that we don't need to judge ourselves. It's not a problem. The fact that you are feeling scared or worried or whatever it is or doubting yourself about moving forward in some way, is not a sign that anything's gone wrong. That is absolutely normal. Our brain wants to keep us safe. So now it's your job as the designer CEO to learn to get out of your own way, and that's what we're doing here by listening to this podcast.
If being kind to yourself, if expressing that self-compassion is a challenge for you, which I know for a lot of my clients it is, make sure you go and listen to Episode 145. It's titled Stop Being So Hard on Yourself. That'll be a great additional resource as you do this process.
Once you have each of those fears listed out, what you're going to do is you're going to go through the list and you're going to write down a solution for each of them or a way to support yourself. The idea here is you're going to show yourself that number one, you actually are capable of handling anything that comes your way. And that two, you can trust yourself to figure it out, make it right, and take care of yourself through the ups and downs that come with expansion. You are going to show yourself that you will be okay and that you can be okay through whatever challenges come up.
Now I want to take this from concept of the fear inventory to some very specific examples. So, first one could be maybe you have a desire to hire a new team member. This could be your first team member, it could be your fifth, it could be your 10th, whatever. But you might have some fears around sustaining them financially. It might be around having the skills to manage that size team, or maybe you fear being someone who someone else wants to work with. You're thinking, why would they want to do this work, or why would they want to work for our company when there's so many great companies they could work with, okay?
So maybe to address the fear of financially sustaining them, you make a plan to look at your numbers with your accountant. You review the pipeline, and you see what work needs to be coming in for this hire to make sense. Maybe if your fears are around having the skills to manage someone or manage a larger team, you decide the solution is you're going to take a class or you're going to hire a coach, which I help a lot of my clients with hiring and managing. Or you're going to consult with a colleague who has a similar size business or listen to a podcast.
If you're one of those designers who fears that someone might not want to work with you for whatever reason or do the tasks that you are asking them to do, you could create a list of all of the reasons you can think of why someone would want to work with you. What do you have to offer? Why would this be an excellent opportunity? Just go line by line and show yourself it will be okay.
Another example could be around increasing the firm's visibility to show off the incredible work you've been doing. Maybe your fear is time, that you won't have enough of it to get it done. So you could think of, how am I going to get it done? Maybe that's through delegation. Maybe it's through creating a project breakdown that I talk a lot about of how you can get it done in little bits.
Maybe the fear is around rejection or judgment, and you need to remind yourself that actually, no one is for everyone. And just because someone else doesn't want to accept your project into a magazine doesn't mean anything about your work. It could very well be about just the type of work that they're looking for for that particular issue.
Or it might be a fear around the expense of, is this going to be worth it if I hire a PR firm? And so some solutions might look like running the numbers of what would make it worth it, however you want to define that, or looking at how many months you want to give something to develop, and what metrics you're going to be tracking to know if it is a success.
As I'm going here, I hope you're hearing there's always a solution for everything. So, I'll give you one more. It could be taking an extended vacation. Certainly, I had a lot of fears coming up over the last winter when I was thinking about creating my summer slowdown. So maybe you want to take an extended vacation or time off. And maybe it is like a two-week trip with your family or live somewhere else for a period of time, whatever that is.
Maybe you have fears that your clients will be mad and think you're flaking out on them. Possible solutions could be you give your clients advanced notice. You only take on projects, the types and timelines that will work with this travel schedule. Maybe you build time into your project schedule in advance so that you're ahead of things, so you can keep them moving forward while you're away. A solution might even be as simple as reminding yourself that your clients like to take vacation too. They get that people take time off. Maybe they'll even be happy for you, as long as you're clear and set expectations.
Another fear with extended time off could be financial. So you make a savings plan. Or the fear could be around leaving your staff behind, and that your employees can't handle it, or maybe that they're going to feel resentful if you're taking too much time off.
Just start thinking about what am I worried about and how could I solve for that? With the employees one, it could easily be giving them more opportunities, well in advance, to step into a leadership position before vacation, or maybe it relies on systems and processes. You start to see what you need to do that's going to help actually move you forward instead of spinning in the what-ifs.
The goal with the fear inventory is to come to a place of peace, acceptance, or just plain neutrality with the things that you fear. As I'm always talking about, our brain's primary concern is keeping us safe. So if it believes that there is something unsafe about what you want to do, then it's going to try and keep you right where you are. It will try and keep you stuck, and it will try and keep you from making the decision or taking action.
This is why the fear inventory is so effective, because what you're doing through looking at how do I create this safety for myself or provide solutions or solve for challenges that might come up, you're showing your brain that it's safe. It's showing that you can trust yourself.
It's kind of like when you were a kid, or maybe you have a child, and they are afraid of a monster in the closet or something like that. And they lay in bed, they think about all the little hairy monsters and all their beady eyes in the closet and how scary it is. But then mom comes in, or dad, and they open up the closet door, and they turn on the light, and the child sees, oh yeah, it's actually just a closet. And the child sees, oh, yeah, it's just a closet, and I'm laying here in my safe, snug little bed, and I'm okay.
And that's really what the fear inventory does for you. It creates space to process and peek in the dark corners that we've been avoiding looking at, that your brain's afraid of looking at. And it shines a light on what is actually going to help you come to a place of neutrality, peace, acceptance, and safety, and capability of showing yourself that you really can make empowered decisions. And often what happens too with these fear inventories is they bring up lessons to be learned or problems to be solved for ahead of time, which actually will prevent the things that you're afraid of from happening.
Now, of course, it's not a guarantee, but it can be a very proactive and strategic approach to your business planning. So even though your brain wants to tell you you should avoid looking at these fears, you really do need to. And often there's incredible insight to be gained. I did an episode called Why You Should Plan to Fail. That's Episode 64, and that can be really helpful in this whole context as well.
As we wrap up, I do want to acknowledge that this does take some time and it can feel uncomfortable when we take a pause from all of the external kind of what should I do, how should I do it, or just the external like avoidance of you doing all sorts of other things, but what you know you want to be doing, and turn inwards. So, just to be clear, as always, it doesn't have to happen all at once. There is no rush. You're already not doing the thing if you are identifying with this phrase stuck. So allow yourself space to experiment with this.
And if you don't want to do the full fear inventory, which personally I think you should try at least once to see really how powerful it can be, I'm also going to give you a few quick questions you can ask yourself to start to shift your perspectives and gain clarity around your next steps, so you can get moving.
Question number one: How would I solve for this? Right? That's the question essentially you're asking yourself with the full fear inventory. This one's kind of fun. This happens, so what? This turns your brain upside down. So what? Okay? Maybe it's not as bad as you think
Or another way to put that is, what's so bad about that? Your brain's telling you it's bad, but maybe it's not. Maybe it actually creates an opportunity. So that's the last question I want to leave you with. How would this actually create an opportunity? You're going to shift your focus from what's on the line to lose and move your attention to what you have to gain.
What's amazing about this whole process is not only does it just get you moving towards what you want to be doing, it builds your emotional capacity. And that capacity just continues to grow and expand with you as you evolve as the business owner in terms of your confidence, your levels of resilience, and it also is going to increase your actual time capacity, as in you can get more done in the same amount of time because you aren't letting fear be the driver. You're going to be more effective, you're going to be more efficient and productive.
So this fear inventory, while it's kind of focused on looking at, oh, all the things that I think I shouldn't be doing, right? Like we tell ourselves, I shouldn't doubt myself, I should think positive, all of that. When you take the time to look a few layers deeper, you are going to be so much more clear and so much more strategic as the business owner.
Give this fear inventory a try. It is like clearing a big roadblock from out in front of you. It's how you're going to get unstuck and into action. And that is not to say that along the way, even if you do the full inventory, you come to acceptance and peace and all of that. It's not to say that the fear and doubt won't pop up or that you're always going to feel confident. But what will happen is you're going to be able to quickly spot the fears and redirect yourself and move forward trusting that you will figure it out from a place of internal safety and self-trust. It's pretty amazing.
So that's what I've got for you this week. I'm going to be back on November 12th with a brand new episode. And if you love what I share in this podcast and you are not currently subscribed to Monday Mindset, which is my weekly dose of coaching wisdom, tools, and strategy, make sure you're on that list. You can go to desicreswell.com/resources and you'll see the link to sign up. That is a great way to keep our weekly touchpoint alive and hear from me and get set up for the week. Until we talk again, I am wishing you well, and wishing you a beautiful week.
Thanks for joining me for this week's episode of The Interior Design Business CEO. If you want more tips, tools and strategies visit DesiCreswell.com, where you’ll get immediate access to a variety of free resources to help you take what you learn on the podcast and put it into action. And if you love what you’re hearing, be sure to rate, review, and follow the show wherever you listen to podcasts to ensure you never miss an episode. I’ll talk to you next week.
It's called a fear inventory, and this strategy is perfect for you if you have one of those big goals that I mentioned that really keep getting deferred, actions or decisions that you've been avoiding, or a change that you know you want to make, but you're just not doing it. In this episode, I'll walk you through how to complete your own fear inventory to get unstuck and get moving forward.
Welcome to The Interior Design Business CEO, the only show for designers who are ready to confidently run and grow their businesses without the stress and anxiety. If you're ready to develop a bigger vision for your interior design business, free up your time, and streamline your days for productivity and profit, you're in the right place.
I'm Desi Creswell, an award-winning interior designer and certified life and business coach. I help interior designers just like you stop feeling overwhelmed so they can build profitable businesses they love to run. Are you ready to confidently lead your business, clients, and projects? Let's go.
Hello Designer, welcome back to the podcast. It is the first episode following our new cadence of every other week. If you haven't listened to the last episode, it's number 155. I do encourage you to queue that up for later. I give a real behind-the-scenes look at my decision-making process around the podcast change, especially in relation to how I'm allocating resources in my business and thinking about the different elements of my marketing and how I spend my time and money, and of course, just mental bandwidth.
Today's topic is going to be all about creating a fear inventory and how that's a strategic planning move. This is especially important if you've had a feeling of something needs to shift, something needs to change, but you're feeling resistance to the change. And maybe it's a subtle feeling of knowing something's off, or you know exactly that change that you want to make. And maybe you're dreaming up plans for next year's and a bigger vision, and you're feeling that internal tug of war of I want to move forward, I want to move towards that vision, and I just can't seem to because there's some internal block. And that could definitely be for your business or in your life.
The concept of a fear inventory is directly related to that last episode that I mentioned, in how I used a fear inventory to make the change from my podcast to go from weekly to every other week. Making this shift with the podcast cadence was something that I knew that I wanted to do for a while and have been considering it, but I was really having trouble acting on that internal knowing and doing the actual steps that I needed to do to make the change, like sending that email to my podcast team, thinking about what would I do instead if I wasn't marketing every week this way, what else might I be doing, or do I want to do something different? Looking at this from a really holistic perspective.
And of course, there was the emotional component of, you know, I had a lot of self-doubt around whether it was the right move. So it was feeling like the right move, but then my mind chatter was quite loud around it. And really what that meant was a delayed decision, delayed action. It was this internal tug of war that was keeping me stuck. And it might seem like maybe not a big deal. I don't know. Maybe you can relate, maybe you can't, where, yeah, Desi, it's just every other week instead of once a week.
Yes, it looks like that from the outside, and even on the other side of it, I'm like, this is kind of a small change. But on the inside, it did feel like this big risk of doing something that was different from what I've been doing consistently for 3 years.
So there was a lot of wheel spinning that I had to coach myself through and beyond. And often, this is the case when we're wanting to make a change that we know is feeling right internally, but there is the fear and there is the doubt and the worry. And it becomes almost more comfortable to be in the worry and to be in the indecision than taking a bold action.
And I've of course felt this in many different ways, in many different iterations of the business, even just making the decision to close down my interior design practice and shift into joining a life coaching program or joining a mastermind to help grow the business, or hiring a new assistant. I mean, there's so many different ways that this shows up.
And if we don't address the fear or the flavor of fear, right? Sometimes fear is the self-doubt, the worry, the anxiety. It can feel a lot of different ways, but if we don't take a look at that and address it with a lot of compassion, it will prevent us from taking action and delay getting more of what you want or moving in the direction of more of what you know is right for you and your business.
As you listen to this episode, I want you to consider where you maybe feel stuck or maybe where you're feeling like you're dragging your feet in your interior design business, because I'm going to walk you through a process for what I call is the fear inventory. It's something that I use a lot in my business, whether that's for myself or with my clients. And we have to look at these fears, not in a way of we're not spinning in the fears or swimming in them, but we're shining a light on them. And it's really one of the best business strategies you can use when it comes to making changes, upleveling, and stretching your capacity and capability in your design business.
We think of, oh, we just need the plan, but we need to learn to trust ourselves in taking action towards that plan. I was recently in a yoga class and the instructor said, when a bird flies over to a tree, it's not trusting the tree's branch, it's trusting its own wings. I thought that was such a beautiful way to illustrate some of what we're talking about here today is creating that high level of self-trust to move beyond the anxiety, the self-doubt, the worry, and the fear. Because as entrepreneurs, we're always asking ourselves to wade into uncharted waters or go deeper than we have before.
And if you're listening to this podcast, I'm pretty sure you've got goals and you want to improve your business. And that is incredible, and it is part of your evolution as a person, but it's also challenging. And we need to name that and left uncheck, those emotions can really start to become your own roadblock towards the type of success that you want to create, and create a lot of self-sabotaging, avoiding the work, and making decisions and taking courageous action that is actually going to get you where you want to go.
So again, make sure you're thinking of an example for yourself of where you feel stuck. And of course, stuck can mean a lot of different things, but it could look something like avoiding thinking about taking some time to outline next steps or researching what you need to do. It could mean looping on the past, right? So it could be an avoidance of the future, but it also could very much be a adherence or clinging to the past. Maybe there was some past decision that you made that you're using against yourself now, or maybe a decision you didn't make that you wish you had, and that quote-unquote “failure” in however you look at that is creating a level of fear that is actually kind of creating fear of the future.
So it could also look like delaying or spinning on a decision, perfecting and tweaking over and over, spending more time doubting than doing. And a big one too to look out for in this stuckness is overthinking and over outsourcing, meaning outsourcing your business and your desires and decisions to other people who may or may not have the business that you want to have.
Now, often we think that overthinking is being responsible. And thoughtful thought processes are, yes, can be helpful and can be a responsible thing to do. And we also need to have the self-awareness of when it is actually you keeping yourself stuck versus being strategically thoughtful.
So now that you have that example in your head, you're going to do an inventory of your fears. With this example in mind, what you're going to do is you're going to grab a notebook or a Google Doc. And if you're driving or walking when you're listening to this, listen through and hear the process so it can start to lock in your brain. And then you can come back to this or look at the transcript.
So you're going to grab something that you can write with. And what you're going to do is when you think about the thing that you want to do or accomplish or become, you are going to write down every fear, doubt, and worry you have about the goal, decision, or action.
I'm going to give you some specific examples of how this works in just a little bit. But if we want to brainstorm what a lot of fears could possibly be or what those common ones are, usually it's around getting it wrong in some way, losing money or losing the business, maybe finding out that you're not as capable as you thought, maybe it's you won't be able to undo what you want to do or that you're going to have to redo something. A lot of times we have a fear of wasting time. I do have an episode on that. It's 124. It's called “Fear of Wasting Time.”
Maybe the fears are around people. So it could be your clients, a team member, your spouse, not liking your decisions or actions, or maybe even publicly speaking negatively about you, like a bad review in some way. Often, we fear looking “dumb,” I say that in quotations, or being embarrassed. I guarantee there is some emotion you're afraid to feel, and that is creating internal resistance. And of course, judgment. Judgment's a big one. We're fearing judgment from ourselves, going back to that getting it wrong, or judgment from others who might not have the same opinions or want what you want, or just not understand what you're doing.
The big thing here is you don't want to censor yourself. This is a list for no one but you. It doesn't matter if the fear feels silly or small or if it feels really big and true. I want you to put it on paper and get it out of your mind. The fears will swirl until you address them. So we want to make sure that we are making them visible in the light of day. This is how you address the root issue in your business. This is why often we can have all of the strategy you need through a podcast or a class you took or something like that, and you can't get out of your own way.
And that's because I like to think of this circle image, right? So if the fear starts at the top of the circle and you start following down the path, eventually, what you end up doing if there is that underlying emotional issue that needs to be addressed is you exit the circle. So the loop never gets closed. It's like constantly experiencing the worst, and then you don't ever get yourself to a point where it feels safe again. So a big part of creating this fear inventory is to create solutions, of course, but also it's about creating internal safety.
So once you have all those fears down on paper, I want you to just take a look at them. Sometimes we find, maybe they're not as bad as we thought they'd be. Sometimes we look at this list and we get a little overwhelmed. Like, I can't believe that is all happening inside my head. I think you know what I mean.
With all of this, give yourself heaps of self-compassion. We all get stuck from time to time, okay? And that is a big part of what I want to normalize here too, is that we don't need to judge ourselves. It's not a problem. The fact that you are feeling scared or worried or whatever it is or doubting yourself about moving forward in some way, is not a sign that anything's gone wrong. That is absolutely normal. Our brain wants to keep us safe. So now it's your job as the designer CEO to learn to get out of your own way, and that's what we're doing here by listening to this podcast.
If being kind to yourself, if expressing that self-compassion is a challenge for you, which I know for a lot of my clients it is, make sure you go and listen to Episode 145. It's titled Stop Being So Hard on Yourself. That'll be a great additional resource as you do this process.
Once you have each of those fears listed out, what you're going to do is you're going to go through the list and you're going to write down a solution for each of them or a way to support yourself. The idea here is you're going to show yourself that number one, you actually are capable of handling anything that comes your way. And that two, you can trust yourself to figure it out, make it right, and take care of yourself through the ups and downs that come with expansion. You are going to show yourself that you will be okay and that you can be okay through whatever challenges come up.
Now I want to take this from concept of the fear inventory to some very specific examples. So, first one could be maybe you have a desire to hire a new team member. This could be your first team member, it could be your fifth, it could be your 10th, whatever. But you might have some fears around sustaining them financially. It might be around having the skills to manage that size team, or maybe you fear being someone who someone else wants to work with. You're thinking, why would they want to do this work, or why would they want to work for our company when there's so many great companies they could work with, okay?
So maybe to address the fear of financially sustaining them, you make a plan to look at your numbers with your accountant. You review the pipeline, and you see what work needs to be coming in for this hire to make sense. Maybe if your fears are around having the skills to manage someone or manage a larger team, you decide the solution is you're going to take a class or you're going to hire a coach, which I help a lot of my clients with hiring and managing. Or you're going to consult with a colleague who has a similar size business or listen to a podcast.
If you're one of those designers who fears that someone might not want to work with you for whatever reason or do the tasks that you are asking them to do, you could create a list of all of the reasons you can think of why someone would want to work with you. What do you have to offer? Why would this be an excellent opportunity? Just go line by line and show yourself it will be okay.
Another example could be around increasing the firm's visibility to show off the incredible work you've been doing. Maybe your fear is time, that you won't have enough of it to get it done. So you could think of, how am I going to get it done? Maybe that's through delegation. Maybe it's through creating a project breakdown that I talk a lot about of how you can get it done in little bits.
Maybe the fear is around rejection or judgment, and you need to remind yourself that actually, no one is for everyone. And just because someone else doesn't want to accept your project into a magazine doesn't mean anything about your work. It could very well be about just the type of work that they're looking for for that particular issue.
Or it might be a fear around the expense of, is this going to be worth it if I hire a PR firm? And so some solutions might look like running the numbers of what would make it worth it, however you want to define that, or looking at how many months you want to give something to develop, and what metrics you're going to be tracking to know if it is a success.
As I'm going here, I hope you're hearing there's always a solution for everything. So, I'll give you one more. It could be taking an extended vacation. Certainly, I had a lot of fears coming up over the last winter when I was thinking about creating my summer slowdown. So maybe you want to take an extended vacation or time off. And maybe it is like a two-week trip with your family or live somewhere else for a period of time, whatever that is.
Maybe you have fears that your clients will be mad and think you're flaking out on them. Possible solutions could be you give your clients advanced notice. You only take on projects, the types and timelines that will work with this travel schedule. Maybe you build time into your project schedule in advance so that you're ahead of things, so you can keep them moving forward while you're away. A solution might even be as simple as reminding yourself that your clients like to take vacation too. They get that people take time off. Maybe they'll even be happy for you, as long as you're clear and set expectations.
Another fear with extended time off could be financial. So you make a savings plan. Or the fear could be around leaving your staff behind, and that your employees can't handle it, or maybe that they're going to feel resentful if you're taking too much time off.
Just start thinking about what am I worried about and how could I solve for that? With the employees one, it could easily be giving them more opportunities, well in advance, to step into a leadership position before vacation, or maybe it relies on systems and processes. You start to see what you need to do that's going to help actually move you forward instead of spinning in the what-ifs.
The goal with the fear inventory is to come to a place of peace, acceptance, or just plain neutrality with the things that you fear. As I'm always talking about, our brain's primary concern is keeping us safe. So if it believes that there is something unsafe about what you want to do, then it's going to try and keep you right where you are. It will try and keep you stuck, and it will try and keep you from making the decision or taking action.
This is why the fear inventory is so effective, because what you're doing through looking at how do I create this safety for myself or provide solutions or solve for challenges that might come up, you're showing your brain that it's safe. It's showing that you can trust yourself.
It's kind of like when you were a kid, or maybe you have a child, and they are afraid of a monster in the closet or something like that. And they lay in bed, they think about all the little hairy monsters and all their beady eyes in the closet and how scary it is. But then mom comes in, or dad, and they open up the closet door, and they turn on the light, and the child sees, oh yeah, it's actually just a closet. And the child sees, oh, yeah, it's just a closet, and I'm laying here in my safe, snug little bed, and I'm okay.
And that's really what the fear inventory does for you. It creates space to process and peek in the dark corners that we've been avoiding looking at, that your brain's afraid of looking at. And it shines a light on what is actually going to help you come to a place of neutrality, peace, acceptance, and safety, and capability of showing yourself that you really can make empowered decisions. And often what happens too with these fear inventories is they bring up lessons to be learned or problems to be solved for ahead of time, which actually will prevent the things that you're afraid of from happening.
Now, of course, it's not a guarantee, but it can be a very proactive and strategic approach to your business planning. So even though your brain wants to tell you you should avoid looking at these fears, you really do need to. And often there's incredible insight to be gained. I did an episode called Why You Should Plan to Fail. That's Episode 64, and that can be really helpful in this whole context as well.
As we wrap up, I do want to acknowledge that this does take some time and it can feel uncomfortable when we take a pause from all of the external kind of what should I do, how should I do it, or just the external like avoidance of you doing all sorts of other things, but what you know you want to be doing, and turn inwards. So, just to be clear, as always, it doesn't have to happen all at once. There is no rush. You're already not doing the thing if you are identifying with this phrase stuck. So allow yourself space to experiment with this.
And if you don't want to do the full fear inventory, which personally I think you should try at least once to see really how powerful it can be, I'm also going to give you a few quick questions you can ask yourself to start to shift your perspectives and gain clarity around your next steps, so you can get moving.
Question number one: How would I solve for this? Right? That's the question essentially you're asking yourself with the full fear inventory. This one's kind of fun. This happens, so what? This turns your brain upside down. So what? Okay? Maybe it's not as bad as you think
Or another way to put that is, what's so bad about that? Your brain's telling you it's bad, but maybe it's not. Maybe it actually creates an opportunity. So that's the last question I want to leave you with. How would this actually create an opportunity? You're going to shift your focus from what's on the line to lose and move your attention to what you have to gain.
What's amazing about this whole process is not only does it just get you moving towards what you want to be doing, it builds your emotional capacity. And that capacity just continues to grow and expand with you as you evolve as the business owner in terms of your confidence, your levels of resilience, and it also is going to increase your actual time capacity, as in you can get more done in the same amount of time because you aren't letting fear be the driver. You're going to be more effective, you're going to be more efficient and productive.
So this fear inventory, while it's kind of focused on looking at, oh, all the things that I think I shouldn't be doing, right? Like we tell ourselves, I shouldn't doubt myself, I should think positive, all of that. When you take the time to look a few layers deeper, you are going to be so much more clear and so much more strategic as the business owner.
Give this fear inventory a try. It is like clearing a big roadblock from out in front of you. It's how you're going to get unstuck and into action. And that is not to say that along the way, even if you do the full inventory, you come to acceptance and peace and all of that. It's not to say that the fear and doubt won't pop up or that you're always going to feel confident. But what will happen is you're going to be able to quickly spot the fears and redirect yourself and move forward trusting that you will figure it out from a place of internal safety and self-trust. It's pretty amazing.
So that's what I've got for you this week. I'm going to be back on November 12th with a brand new episode. And if you love what I share in this podcast and you are not currently subscribed to Monday Mindset, which is my weekly dose of coaching wisdom, tools, and strategy, make sure you're on that list. You can go to desicreswell.com/resources and you'll see the link to sign up. That is a great way to keep our weekly touchpoint alive and hear from me and get set up for the week. Until we talk again, I am wishing you well, and wishing you a beautiful week.
Thanks for joining me for this week's episode of The Interior Design Business CEO. If you want more tips, tools and strategies visit DesiCreswell.com, where you’ll get immediate access to a variety of free resources to help you take what you learn on the podcast and put it into action. And if you love what you’re hearing, be sure to rate, review, and follow the show wherever you listen to podcasts to ensure you never miss an episode. I’ll talk to you next week.
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