How Can I Overcome The Fear of Failure?

Fear of failure is common in societies where success is highly prized and failure is punished. You want success and yet only those who are brave enough to confront this type of fear are the ones able to rise above their fears and achieve whatever goals they have set for themselves. If you are unfortunate enough to be overcome by this fear, then you are being prevented from realizing your potential.

One of the most destructive elements within the fear of failure is your inability to take criticism or feedback really well.

Particularly if that criticism or feedback is valid.

Instead, you tend to magnify the mistakes you have created along the way until it overtakes your mind such that it is difficult to get rid of those thoughts.

Somehow, your ego gets a payoff when you allow yourself to indulge in this way of thinking.

There are also instances where the fear of failure is so great that you tend to limit yourself to the point of not trying for fear of failing.

Steps to overcoming the fear of failure

Unless you are able to let go of the fear of failure, then you are unable to achieve your desired results. Fear of failure produces negative thoughts that reduce your human potential. You think you are incapable of achieving something when in fact you can.

Once you are brave enough to do something about this fear, then you are able to give yourself freedom to do what you need to do and succeed at it. Here are some basic methods you can try.

Do something about the fear

Erm…duh! Fear of failure immobilizes you. You become so wrapped up with the fear that you will eventually fail that you would rather not try. But when you don’t try, you neither fail nor succeed. How will you know if you don’t try?

Therefore, take decisive action towards conquering your fear. If you should fail, then you will create awareness of the factors that will contribute towards your success. When you succeed, then you can reward yourself with that.

Is there more than one way to skin a cat?

There are several factors that contribute as to why you fail or succeed at doing something. Whichever it is, you need to look at your behavior towards something and the result achieved. But the most important step you can take is never to associate your failure with yourself. You can always get back up and try other methods to achieve your goal. You can try doing things differently as the methods you use could be the reason why you failed in your attempt.

You could try an alternative method such as hypnotherapy, for example.

As the saying goes, there is more than one way to skin a cat. Not that you would literally want to 🙂

Learning from failure

For fans of The Matrix, do you remember the scene where Neo and Morpheus are fighting within the training simulation?

A part of the way, when Neo is on the floor, Morpheus asks him:

“How did I beat you?”

Neo replies that it is because Morpheus is stronger.

Morpheus reminds Neo that strength and muscle size have nothing to do with their being in a training simulator. Neo is there to learn how to free his mind.

Learning from failure is the best that you can take from the experience and also one of the more effective ways to get rid of this fear. Instead of putting all the blame on yourself as to why you failed in your endeavors, take it as a learning experience instead. Ask yourself: have I learnt anything? What have I learnt?

If it helps, consider these other questions as they can provide the answers to conquering the fear of failure:

• Where did you make the mistakes?
• How could you prevent the mistake from happening again?
• Where can you make improvements?

Failures must always be translated into a learning experience. That way, you have more opportunities to learn and to grow. After all, if you have not experienced any type of failure, then you would not have the means towards changing for the better. In terms of conquering this type of fear, it is important that you learn how to confront and overcome them. Or else, you could end up repeating the same mistake or worse that your fear of failure could prevent you from achieving your goal.

Image by John Hain from Pixabay