Lots of people would love to start a business of their own, but they are afraid of failing. So the main obstacle to starting a small business is not actually about products or selling or money – it's fear.

Is it you? If fear of failure is what is preventing you from starting a small business, you have to get around it and forge ahead. This is how:

Prepare to Succeed

The first thing you need to do to prepare to succeed is to learn how to do it. You already know how to fail. You can fail by doing nothing or you can fail by doing stupid things. But how do you succeed? By finding out exactly what you would need to be successful and ensuring that those needs are met. For a business to be successful, you need to have essentially three things:

1) enough people who want to buy what you're selling
2) a product or service whose quality and price is competitive enough that people want to buy it
3) a way to bring those two together

So there are your basic needs. Now all you have to do is figure out how to meet these needs, create a plan and put it in writing - call it a business plan and make it your blueprint for success.

Change Your Attitude Towards Failure

Why are you afraid of failure? Do you think it will make you a bad person, a “loser” that others look down on?
Are you scared of losing all or most of your money?

Failure doesn’t change your genes or your personality. It affects some people’s actions negatively, but it’s not negative in itself. Will you be a “loser” if you fail? Only if you allow yourself to be. “It’s not being down; it’s staying down” that makes you a loser.

Will others look down on you? Some people might. You can’t control the thoughts or actions of other people – so why lose sleep over them?

As for losing all your money, it's not very likely. You can structure your business in such a way as to limit your liability by incorporating or by forming a partnership. How important is the amount that you might lose? That’s a matter of perspective. Money is never as important as your health or happiness.

The point is that business failure can be uncomfortable and unpleasant, but is not life-threatening. And failure is always an opportunity of one kind or another – an opportunity to stretch beyond our usual boundaries, to learn something valuable, or to make previously undreamed-of connections. Remembering this positive face of failure and focusing on it will go a long way towards changing your attitude about it.

Starting and running your own small business could be one of the most enriching experiences of your life. Don’t let your fear of failure make you miss out.