You lost your job! But dont look now, because whats coming down the track is even worse! Let me spell it out for you. Not only You-lost-your-job, but more importantYOU HAVE LOST YOUR SELF-CONFIDENCE. The real sad thing about this is..YOU DONT EVEN KNOW IT!

If you are like most people you will stay in a state of denial for a long time. Why? Because you lost your job. I am talking about the little me syndrome. Ill take any job I can get. I owe it to my family to get money coming in. Why hold out for a real good job? Ill just go through all of our savings.

Sound familiar? You bet it does. I know, because Ive gone through the entire cycle of loosing jobs and most important, loosing my self-confidence. Dont misunderstand me, its important to keep money coming in. Right on, you dont want to go through your savings. Its very easy to spend, but awful hard to save.

I am talking about avoiding an insidious mind-set that can knock you out for a lifetime, if you are not careful. It has nothing to do with being weak or strong. In fact, people that had strong accomplished careers are easy prey for loosing self-confidence and self-belief.

You can see it all over the place. Men and women in their mid-career development. And Bang, You-lost-your-job, and the next thing you know they are doing some menial work, just to keep some income coming.

Thats all well and good, but if five years latter, this displaced job worker is still doing his little nothing job..its like help time. I have seen very competent men and women who have never worked again. They stayed home and let their supporting spouses bring home the bacon. Goodness knows the number of families that have broken up because of job loss.

What is so destructive about job loss? Very good, competent, and strong people get knocked for a loop and often go down for the ten count. Why? Because strong people with good careers IDENTIFY with their work. Their ego and self-esteem get tied up and interwoven with their job/career performance. When the career falls apart, slowly but surely the person looses his or her grip.

So what can you do about this? How can you avoid this career killing trap?

First, it helps to know what you want. Then, you have to FOCUS. Before you can focus with strength, you need to get rid of some FEAR.

This means Winning With Fear. You win with fear by facing scary or intimidating situations head-on.

Your growth and accomplishment muscles get bigger every time you win with fear. It works like this..new, different, and challenging situations have a tendency to make us want to pause or stop and think about the situation.

If it is really scary, we will delay or walk away from the perceived danger. If you are working toward goals with deadlines and competition, you often cant afford this inactivity.

If you are going to win, you need Self-Confidence. In another words, if you want to Kick Butt and accomplish your goals, you need to take on a Partner.

The question isare you tuff enough? Thats right. Believe it or not, your Partner for Success is Fear. In order to make the Radical Changes you need in your life, you must make your life long enemy into an ally.

Like in Martial Arts you win by turning your opponents strengths into weaknesses. How do you do this with FEAR? You learn how fear operates.

Before human beings became civilized FEAR served man very well. When one cave-man ran into another during a hunting trip or hostile situation, they would size each other up and the emotion of Mr. Fear would cause them to either fight or flee. Depending how big the other guy was. The power of Adrenalin would give them extra high octane energy-strength to fight or nervous energy to run.

Now days, in society, we dont have the luxury of this kind of direct action.If we did, we probably all would end up in jail or the nuthouse. So,this pent up energy from fear turns against us and makes us nervous, sweat, and fretful. SELF-TALK, that incessant gibberish you hear in your mind all day, is Mr. Fear talking to you. You cant do this; you cant do that. Whats he or she saying about me? What will people think? It goes on and on.

At this point you use your fear-management skills to make Mr. Fear a true ally and work for you!

Here's a personal example of facing fear from own travel experience.

I Climbed the Rock on the 7 day cruise on the Voyager, Royal Caribbean Cruise Ship Line.

Lots of fun and sun in the Western Caribbean. My biggest kick was doing the rock climbing. Yeah, the Voyager actually has a huge rock climbing facility.

A few years ago I did rock climbing with my son. So, I had confidence I could do this Rock.

As I waited in line with other people to take my turn, I felt a quick jolt of self-doubt and Fear. I ignored this feeling and jumped to the starters position when my turn to climb came up. (There were 3 different trails)

To my astonishment, I found this challenge to be tougher than I thought. I was about a 1/4 of the way up the wall, when I realized the hand grips and foot supports were much smaller than what I was familiar with.

After I was 1/2 way up the wall, my strength vanished. So I dropped back down.

The instructor asked me if I wanted to give it another shot. I said, "Lets do it". Right on. I Climbed the Rock.

Up I went again, knowing in my heart that I would "do it".

Guess what? This time I made it 2/3 the way up and "Bam". I was finished. Exhausted. My arms felt like putty. So I dropped down.

The instructor was smiling at me. "Give it another try. Only do it on the 3rd trail. It's a little easier."

By now I am starting to sweat. But, I was all motion. When you start to smell trouble, you have to keep your focus on the goal at hand.

Up I went on the 3rd trail. After I was 1/2 way up..boom-I ran out of gas and dropped.

I heard one of the other instructors say, "That guy has spirit".

That motivated me. So, up I went again. This time I came two rungs from the top when-Crash..no strength left. Down I went.

I hit the deck totally whacked out. My clothing was soaked thru with perspiration and my ego was pummeled.

My instructor said I would have made it..all the way, if I had not shot my strength on the more difficult trail. Yeah, I Climbed the Rock. Another instructor came up to me and congratulated me on doing a good job. I didn't want to hear any of this. I felt "whipped" and just wanted to get out of there.

After I calmed down, I went to the side lines and observed the other people as they climed. Most got 1/2 way up and quit. There were a few that made it to the top. I really respected them.

The instructors got a kick out of me because of my tenacious spirit and determination not to quit, until I was totally exhausted.

I thought about that adventure all day. By nighttime, I was actually proud of myself. I Climbed the Rock. I no longer considered it a failure. I met my fear and didn't quit, until I used up every ounce of energy I had. I Climbed the Rock. Not bad for a 69 year old guy!