Few things are more likely to hold you back from reaching your goals than a fear of failure.
Fear of failure can be crippling, keeping you from ever taking the risks that are necessary for success.
Thankfully, fear of failure is something that can be overcome.
If fear of failure is something that you struggle with, check out these four effective ways to move past this harmful, illogical fear.
Search for the Lesson to be Learned
In most cases, failure is a much better teacher than success. Achieving success is a process of trial and error, and your errors play an invaluable role in teaching you what works and what doesn’t.
No matter what your pursuit in life might be, you are going to make errors along the way. Rather than seeing these errors as something to be feared, though, they should be seen as an opportunity to learn and grow.
Behind every failure is a lesson that, when learned, turns failure into something that hones and refines you into a better, more successful person. In the same way that iron is tempered in fire, human beings are tempered by their failures.
If you are able to embrace your failures as the learning opportunities that they are, failure itself becomes another tool at your disposal rather than something to be feared.
The 5 Second Rule
by Mel Robbins
The 5 Second Rule is a simple, one-size-fits-all solution for the one problem we all face —we hold ourselves back.
⏱ 10 minutes reading time
🎧 Audio version available
Face Your Fears
Any psychologist will tell you that no matter what your fears might be, the best way to overcome them is to face them head-on – and this is something that holds true for a fear of failure as well.
In the end, the best way to overcome a fear of failure is to experience failure. This doesn’t mean failing on purpose, but it does mean taking a leap of faith and embracing the possibility of failure.
If you succeed then there was nothing to fear in the first place. If you fail along the way – as most everyone will – then you will have the opportunity to come face to face with your fears.
In almost every case, the fear of failure is much more crippling than failure itself. Only by experiencing failure, though, is someone able to realize that failure is not something that is deserving of your fear.
Visualize the Worst that can Happen
Positive thinking can go a long way toward helping you succeed, but there are times when positive thinking isn’t always the answer. When it comes to getting past a fear of failure, visualizing the worst that can happen is often highly beneficial.
The unknown is always much more frightening than the known. When you shine a light on failure and its consequences, you’ll often see that those consequences aren’t nearly as frightening as you might have imagined. In most cases, failing means that you are out a little time, a little money, or both. Even the biggest failures aren’t the end of the world.
You don’t want to get caught up focusing only on the worst that can happen. However, shining a light on the consequences of failure if even for a brief moment before you proceed can reassure you that even the worst that can happen isn’t something to be feared.
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Set Pride Aside
For many people, the fear of failure is rooted in pride. They aren’t afraid of the consequences of failure such as lost time and lost money but are instead afraid of failure itself and the damage that it will do to their pride.
As is often the case, though, pride can be very self-defeating – especially if that pride keeps you from taking risks. It’s essential to understand that failure is nothing to be ashamed of.
Even the most successful, inspirational people in the world have a list of failures to their name that would fill an entire page. Failure is inevitable, and failure almost always precedes success.
The only failure that is worth being ashamed of is a failure to try. If you are able to accept that your failures do not reflect negatively on you in any way then fear of failure becomes much easier to overcome.
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