How to Conquer Fear of Failure

Some people find it hard to accept failure. When you grow up in an environment where perfectionism is a must and failure is unacceptable, you naturally grow up being afraid of failure. When you’ve experienced adverse effects of previous failures, you acquire the fear of failing again.

You get butterflies in your stomach every time you think about disappointing the people you love. You’d hate for them to be humiliated because of your failure so you try to avoid doing anything that can cause you, and them, to lose face in front of other people.

A favorite excuse of people who fear failure is the saying “better safe than sorry”. When you have an irrational fear of failing, you don’t give yourself the chance to succeed. You’d rather stay “safe” in your comfort zone. You don’t challenge yourself. You’re too afraid to try anything new. Or if you do try, you quit far too early because you doubted yourself and didn’t think you’d ever succeed. Having this mindset is a huge barrier to your success. Self-growth is at the bottom of your priorities.

Risks are inherent when taking on new challenges. When you don’t take risks, you avoid failing. But smart and well-disciplined people know that not all risk is bad. In fact, risk can be mitigated by studying and calculating the odds of success.

When setting yourself up to reach a new goal, you try to learn all the details about what you hope to do so you know if your goal is feasible and achievable. 

Being meticulous with your goal planning is important to minimize risk and failure. If you visualize the process as I showed you in the first chapter, then you should be able to overcome your fear of failure. You will know the exact steps you need to take to realize your goal and you’re essentially leaving very little to chance.

It’s very easy to say you’re going to accomplish something, anything, in the next 12 months. You can say you’re going to be 20 pounds lighter or you’ll be living in Europe after a year or you can even say you’re going to find the love of your life soon and tie the knot in the next 12 months!

You can do a lot of things, be in a lot of places and meet loads of new people in under a year. You have an infinite number of possible goals you can choose to achieve.

Your chosen goal could be in response to a dare from your friends or maybe a personal challenge you want to take on. No matter the reason behind your sudden desire to succeed at something new, you need one very important skill to achieve that goal.

Can you guess what that skill is? It’s self-discipline, of course.

Committing to a long-term goal is the beginning of your self- discipline journey. Once you’ve done a mental handshake with yourself or signed on an imaginary dotted line confirming your commitment to a specific goal, then your self-discipline should kick into high gear.

You need to lock yourself in and buckle up so you don’t get left behind in the marathon to reach your goal. You need the stamina and the strength to surpass and overcome all obstacles in order to meet your goal.