Just What is Fear of Failure?
Many people either suffer from or know someone who is struggling with the ‘fear of failure’. Knowing this you may wonder, just what are people really afraid of?
What exactly is fear of failure?
I’ve discovered fear of failure is nothing more than a judgement. Is there really even such a thing as failure? To keep it simple, we can use the example of basketball. The object is to shoot the ball into the mesh hoop. After one attempt you miss, but you come close, but miss the basket by a few inches. Did you really fail? Failure is nothing more than a man-made judgment. You didn’t fail, you just produced a result to your attempt. The way you shot the ball resulted in the ball missing the basket by a few inches. Now you know the way you just shot the ball will produce this result. So, you did not really fail.
What would you accomplish if you knew you could not fail?
I’ve come to believe that the ‘fear of failure’ is really just a fear of what others will think of us. I recall talking with a friend who told me he had a fear of failure. He expressed to me that he was constantly fearful of taking chances at work. He had such a overwhelming fear of failure that he was severely limiting himself in so many ways. What was he really afraid of? After he talked about it for awhile, he started to realize that this fear of failure was really just a fear of what other people would think or they may say about him. One of the most limiting fears is the fear of what other people may think of us.
Is it possible you are going to fail when you are trying new things? Of course. If you are learning figure skating and you are not falling, you aren’t really trying anything new. You are just playing it safe and holding on to the rails and sticking to the easy techniques you’ve already been doing. But you are not elevating and improving yourself.
When you become more confident in yourself, have more faith and belief in yourself; believe me other people’s opinions won’t seem to bother you anymore. You will lose the fear of failure and you will be able to achieve success with calm, courage and confidence. Who really cares what other people have to think or have to say anyway?
Thanks for reading!
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