Fear of Failure

Failure comes to all of us at some point in our lives and in some shape or form; however the fear of failure can become one of your biggest life fears.

Fear of failure really is just a fear of the unknown. You don’t know what’s out there, and so you’re scared, sometimes to the point where you want to give up entirely just to avoid failing!  It doesn’t take long to figure out that the ultimate is to not try at all!

How can you overcome the fear of failure and gain the confidence you need to succeed?

Consider these actions steps:

1. Imagine the worst case scenario. Of course, you should spend time imagining everything turning out well, but it actually helps to imagine the worst case. This is because, while horrible, imagining the worst case gives your fears a face. Your fears are then no longer the unknown and they may not be quite as scary.

2. Take action. The fear of failure can hold you hostage but when you take bold action, you’re able to recognize you simply made a mistake, learn from it and move on.

3. Talk to successful people. Ask them about the times they experienced failure and how they felt. It’s likely that they were afraid and that they’ve even failed greatly before reaching success.

4. Learn to use affirmations. Daily affirmations help to change your mind set about your fears and can reprogram your thinking so you know you will succeed at anything you attempt.

5. Know that you will keep trying.  When faced with failure it is important to pick yourself up, dust yourself off and give it another try.

Help is always Available

Many people the world over suffer the fear of failure so of course there are many people to talk to who can help you.  It is wise to talk to those who have failed many times and overcome this but trying again and again. Of course a Counselor, trained in this field can also provide enormous assistance and support.

Long Term

Remember that life is full of lessons, and when we don’t learn the lesson the first time we get it back again and again until we understand and learn the lesson, that’s really all that failure is, a lesson in life’s journey!

Do you know The Power of Failure?

Do you have a fear of failure? if so you may not know the power of failure! Read on to find out more about Failure…

What do you think when you hear the word failure? You probably are thinking that you’re not good enough and that you should give up?

While failure can involve those thoughts and emotions, failure can also make us stronger or wiser.

A simple definition of failure is:

An act or instance of failing or proving unsuccessful; lack of success.

You might easily have a fear of failure if you don’t understand the power of failure!

When I think of this definition of failure, I’m reminded of Thomas Edison, the inventor of the light bulb. While there are many conflicting stories of how many times Edison “failed” at inventing the electric light bulb, most agree it was in the thousands before he found the right combination of materials.

One of Edison’s most famous quotes is, “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work. I am not discouraged because every wrong attempt discarded is another step forward.”

If you adopt this same attitude, you’ll overcome your feelings of failure and be able to see your dreams and desires come to fruition.

Robert Schuller stated these famous words, “Failure doesn’t mean you’re a failure; it just means you haven’t succeeded yet.”

Henry Ford said, “Failure is only the opportunity to begin again more intelligently.”

When you consider those words from these wise and successful people, you’ll truly begin to understand the power of failure.

The truth is, you only fail when you give up!

When you keep trying until you’ve found the answer or the solution, you’re successful. You’d never say Thomas Edison, Robert Schuller or Henry Ford were failures would you? Sure, they were unsuccessful many, many times, but they didn’t give up until they found the answer, the right procedure or the right materials to solve their dilemma.

In case those quotes weren’t enough to make you believe failure has a positive power and strength, here are some more you might relate to:

“Failure is an event, never a person.” – William D. Brown

The next time you try your hand at something and don’t achieve the desired result immediately, remember failure is an event; it’s not you.

Bill Cosby also said it well when he said, “I don’t know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody.”

If you’re trying to please everyone, you can’t possibly succeed!

“Never confuse a single defeat with final defeat.” – F. Scott Fitzgerald

“You can’t have any successes until you can accept failures.” – George Cukor

Just because you’ve failed once, twice or 10,000 times at something, it doesn’t mean you’re a failure. You only fail when you stop trying.

Still not convinced? How about this:

“You always pass failure on your way to success.” – Mickey Rooney

What do these words mean to you? No matter what you’re trying to succeed at, whether it’s a sport, project, career, invention, or at school, there will be times when you don’t succeed. But you mustn’t let that stop you from reaching your goals, dreams, and desires.

The common thread among all these famous people and their wise words is the same. You can’t have success without failure. Never give up and never stop trying.

There is power in failure, you just have to give yourself a chance. Keep trying, keep failing and soon you’ll find true success!

Fear of Failure or fear of success can stop you in your tracks in accomplishing your goals and becoming a success.

Fear of failure will lead many people into inertia – the inability to make decisions or take action in case they receive rejection or negative outcomes. This mental state is fairly easy to identify and there are many tools in the personal development industry to help combat this plague and reprogram the mind for success.

However, the fear of success is much more subtle, harder to spot and also harder to eradicate.

It is well documented that many people fail to achieve their goals in life due to the phenomenon known as “fear of failure” but are you aware that a major factor that is often overlooked, is a state known as “fear of success“?

Perhaps you have this tendency in your life. Here are some indications of a fear of success mentality.

You settle for less than you feel you deserve or are capable of achieving.

Studying and trying to implement self improvement techniques and/or personal development tools but your life does not improve or may even get worse.

You expect things to go wrong no matter how well the situation appears to be at the moment.

You start new projects full of enthusiasm and optimism but wane in your efforts or stop short before you have completed them.

Can you identify your own patterns in the any of the above statements?

The fear of success can also make you behave in ways that hold you back. Look at the list below. These are the symptoms of the fear of success.

Procrastination is a ‘success killer’! How can you expect to reach your destination if you do not take steps towards it? Strive to do little things each day that will bring you small steps closer to your goal.

Procrastination.

Putting off what needs to be done or not doing what you know will bring you closer to your desired result. Everyone suffers from this inner ‘demon’ at some point in their lives (although some of us suffer from it more than others!).

This is why having a personal development plan is an essential ingredient in the fight against procrastination. Take action! Any action! Refine your steps as you go along but do not sit and do nothing. Taking action is one of the key aspects in personal development.

Thinking that the time is not right – have you ever waited until the timing was perfect before starting a venture? Have you ever waited until you had more information on a better plan?

Again ACTION is the key to the door to success. Taking small steps forward are better than taking none or waiting to see if your foot is landing on the right spot! Even if your actions take you away from your goal you have at least gained insight and knowledge about what does not work!

Can’t see the forest for the trees!

This is almost the opposite of procrastination but has the same effect on your personal development. The aforementioned saying is well known but have you ever given it real consideration?

Don’t get caught up in your plan believing that it is more important than the materialised goal! For many years I got caught in this trap. I started to think and act as though my plan was more important than my end result and thus missed many opportunities to alter my path and reach my goals more quickly! Let go of your ego and allow the Universe to show you a quicker route to your goal. Remain flexible.

Seeing only problems.

How do you use your focus? Do you constantly see only and alll the problems involved? If you are this way inclined it is pointless trying to change overnight! However, you can use this mindset to your advantage while you strive in your personal development to acquire an opportunistic frame of mind instead.

“How can you use seeing only problems to my advantage?” you say. “Easily”, is my reply! Look at the problems and prepare a plan to deal with them. Everytime you overcome one congratulate yourself. Use them as a gauge for your achievements.

If you keep seeing more problems remind yourself of how well you dealt with the others. Look at how far you have come! If you see a problem ask yourself, “how best can I overcome this challenge?” or “how quickly can I rectify this situation?”.

The quality of your questions are important. Use the problems as fact finders. Is there a real problem now? If so then deal with it. Is it a potential problem? If so then create a contingency plan in case it does occur but don’t get caught up in it just be prepared.

Being a Perfectionist.

This is similar to the point above and has the same effect, namely, that you never really move forward. No matter how good a job is when its finished it can always be improved! I have heard many great musicians tell how they hate listening to their own songs because they can find a million things that need improved. Yet, we still enjoy them. I think a classic example of this is “Bridge Over Troubled Water” by Paul Simon. This song is hauntingly beautiful yet Mr. Simon does not think its good enough!

Enjoy the journey, follow the above guidelines and you will achieve success. Eventually your fear of success or fear of failure will dissipate and you will have moved a long way forward in your self improvement and personal development.

Don’t be scared to succeed! Success is Great! Really

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!