Overcoming Fear of Failure

By: Bayou Trésors Staff

“Failure is unimportant, it takes courage to make a fool of yourself.”

-Charlie Chaplin

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The path to success can be long and full of obstacles. But when you finally reach your goal, the feeling of accomplishment you experience is so powerful that it makes you realize every step of the arduous journey was worth the effort.

Anticipatory reflection on that soon-to-be-realized moment of joy can push us through the toughest parts of the journey.

But what if, instead of lingering in daydreams of success and accomplishment, our thoughts veer towards nightmares about failure?

What can happen in that case?

One possibility is that we become so afraid of failure that we stop moving forward and give up on the journey.

This can lead to living with regrets and later looking back on some of the biggest opportunities we were offered with sadness as we ask ourselves, “Why did I pass that up?”

There’s nothing strange about finding failure frightening. It’s completely understandable. But living the life you deserve and finding happiness in reaching your goals requires learning how to overcome a fear of failure.

One thing that can help is to try and replace the word “failure” and its negative connotations with phrases like “learning experiences” and “life lessons.”

The point is to think of every experience in your life as a chance to learn and grow.

So often, we’re trained to view situations as competitions in which we can either be “the winner” or “a loser.” But this isn’t how life actually works in the grand scheme of things.

Every day, there are moment-to-moment lessons that can redefine our path forward, if we have the courage and humility it takes to learn from each lesson.

Life is not a competition, it’s a classroom. Viewing it this way, just may help to dismiss a fear of failure.

Psych Central has additional advice that you might find helpful. It suggests the following five tips.

1. See all the possibilities.
People who take risks know they may fail, but think it’s worth doing anyway. They also know they might succeed.

2. Visualize success.
Close your eyes and use your senses to paint a detailed picture of yourself successfully achieving your goal. Do this several times every day.

3. Redefine success and failure. Create your own definition of success and failure based on your personal values and goals. Success for someone might be a salary of $100 K and someone else might define success as a strong, happy marriage. Is not getting hired for a job failure or just a setback? You have a choice in how you think about these things.

4. Write it down.
Write down your successes every day and read over your list regularly.

5. Progress not perfection.
Even when you’re not perfect, you’re making progress towards your goals.

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​Hopefully, those suggestions will come in handy as you courageously move forward with your goals and keep your focus the successful outcome that you’re going to celebrate as you near the finish line!