Increase your self development strategies by avoiding the fear of failure!

Self development is a huge subject but today I want to concentrate on how to avoid feeling the paralyzing fear of failure. It can be so bad that aside from holting work in progress, it even stops us from starting a project in the first place!

This fear can stop you in your tracks on the road to success, and also prevents us from living life to the full – as we all should!

So what’s going on here? Why do we develop a fear of failure? and why is it so paralyzing?

Fear of failure has often taken hold over a period of time and may have been triggered by a need for acceptance and approval from our loved ones and those who are most important to us.

When we are young, we need acceptance, but those of us who received little praise for our efforts or had constant criticism while growing up unfortunately learn that no matter how hard they try, it is never good enough. As a result, once you are an adult, potential projects can seem doomed before they are even started.

This lack of self esteem feeds itself, and lots of people become hesitant to even try anything new and in turn can become trapped in an dull and boring life.

Fortunately, you don’t have to stick to this thought pattern!
Anyone can overcome their fear of failure and feel success.
An excellent self development resource that I am currently benefiting greatly from is Success University!

The seven steps below make for a fantastic starting point in your journey of self development.

1. Can you recognize the difference between your own fear and an actual lack of real success?

Heaps of people can give a number of reasons for their current or longterm lack of success. But, if you analyze the situation critically and pinpoint when you decided you had supposedly failed, you may find that it was your own fear of failure that stopped you in the first place.

Setbacks and obstacles are a part of any success! When your fear of failure is bearing down upon you, these setbacks will show themselves as a reason not to continue. It is not actually the setback that sets you back – but your lack of self esteem and confidence.

Have a look back over your past endeavours and try to pinpoint the place at which you lost confidence. What were the thoughts that were running through your head? Once you are aware of the fact that it is your own fear that is stopping you, you may begin to make your way past it.

2. Recognize your giving up point.

When people experience the perception of failure, they can begin to become impatient and usually give up too soon to see success. When you expect failure, it can be really hard to consistently put in the effort to make a project work.

How much time and effort did you put into your failed projects? Did you get overwhelmed early on, and then decided to give up or that it wasn’t worth persisting?

3. C’mon……..give yourself a break!

When you find yourself feeling stressed early in a project, make sure you get yourself some time out. If you do not relieve stress and try to push yourself forward, it can only lead to more stress and negativity which will magnify your fear of failure. Relaxing and doing some fun stuff will refresh you and give you back an uplifted frame of mind.

Learn to recognise how much time you can hack working on a project before it gets to you! Then make sure you give yourself mini-breaks just before this time frame is up.

4. You eat an elephant one bite at a time – take baby steps

Instead of trying to complete a big project all in one go, break it down into baby steps! When you begin to feel overwhelmed, stop for your “time out” and then come back later when you’re feeling more refreshed. Once you get by the first task with success it will spru you on to taclke the next one.

5. Work on things that you know you are good at

When you do something that you are actually pretty good at, its easier to succeed. All these little successes will develop your confidence and self-esteem. Once you are on a roll, you can start to develop your skills in other area’s and build even more confidence. Success breeds more success.

Once you have gained more confidence like this, you can put more effort into the projects that usually trigger your fear of failure.

6. Boost your self-esteem

The root cause of fear of failure is usually low self esteem. When you improve your self esteem, your fear of failure will weaken. So, how do you improve your self esteem?

As I said above, self-esteem is often to do with negativity from times gone by. Once you begin to realize this, and that these events most probably had nothing to do with you (yes – even direct negative feedback – this usually has more to do with the people that give you this feedback rather than you, yourself), you can begin to see that you do not need to keep thinking of yourself in the same way and you will start realizing how detrimental this is to your own well being and mindset. Lookout for the the positives in yourself, and seek out and explore your own abilities. Dont worry about what others have to say and rely on yourself more – trust your own judgement.

7. Surround yourself with positive people and support

Friends and family are the obvious choice here, but in many cases these are not always the most positive people for you. If those who are close to you are in the habit of putting you down, this can re-kindle your low self esteem and fear of failure. Try to focus on those “true” friends who support you in every way.

You can also employ professional support such as a life coach or counsellor. If this is too expensive or just not your thing, there are many personal development books and online resources (such as Success University) that can help you get over your fear of failure and achieve success.

If you can follow these seven top tips to avoid feeling the fear of failure your journey in self development is happenening! You will be well on the way to a life of success and fulfilment.
You can enjoy a 14 day FREE Trial at Success University – I love it!

This entry was posted on Sunday, September 21st, 2008 at 12:57 am and is filed under Self Improvement Top Tips. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.