Be honest with yourself – does the fear of failure leave you sweaty palmed? Do you fear taking action and procrastinate regularly because you fear that you will fail?
Fear of failure is one of the greatest fears that people face on a day to day basis. It is something we learnt from childhood and is closely related to fear of criticism and fear of rejection. Unfortunately, our schooling systems do not help as they teach our children that failing should be avoided at all costs and parents can quite often put the same pressure onto their children… not fully contemplating the serious affect this has on both their children and our society long term.
The truth of the matter is that to be successful you will fail and entrepreneurs fail over and over and over again.
I can’t begin to tell you how many times I have failed over the years but the clue is to keep bouncing back and learn from your failures. In fact failing is absolutely essential to personal growth, success and wealth.
Fear only incapacitates unsuccessful people, whilst successful people overcome their fear of failure pretty quickly if they want to live the life of their dreams.
For example, in NLP – The Law of Feedback states: there is no such thing as failure; only feedback. Successful people look at mistakes as outcomes or results, not as failure. Unsuccessful people look at mistakes as permanent and personal.
Most people self-limit themselves and never actually try anything that they are passionate about, whether it’s starting a new course, changing jobs or starting up their own business…
Are you one of those people?
Are you limiting yourself as a result of fear of failure?
Most people do not achieve a fraction of what they are capable of achieving because they are petrified of failing. To me this is heart breaking as life is all about experiencing as much joy as possible and unleashing our true inner power and potential: to follow our dreams from the heart and live an incredible life filled with love, good health, wealth and happiness!
Take these steps to overcome your fear of failure and move yourself forward to living the life of your dreams and reaching your goals:
Step One: Take action today… instantly and with no excuses! Bold, decisive action! Do something scary that you have been putting off for ages. Fear of failure immobilizes you and limits your true inner power and potential (which every single one of us that exists has). To overcome this fear, you must act now!
Step Two: Persist. Successful people just don’t give up, nor do they make any excuses for their failures… none whatsoever. They keep trying different approaches to achieving their outcomes until they finally get the results they want no matter what it takes because they will not settle for anything less than they deserve. Unsuccessful people try one thing that doesn’t work and then give up instantly, usually blaming others for their mis-fortunes. Often people give up when they are on the threshold of succeeding… just minutes away!
Step Three: Don’t take failure personally. Who cares at the end of the day? Failure is about behavior, outcomes, and results. Failure is not a personality characteristic. Although what you did may not have given you the result you wanted, it doesn’t make you a bad person. If this was the case, I would be considered the biggest failure and the worst person known to mankind!
Step Four: Treat the experience as an opportunity to learn. Think of failure as a learning experience. Remember the saying: “There is no such thing as failure; only feedback”.
What did you learn from the experience? How can you use the experience to improve yourself or your situation in the future? Use what you learned from the experience so you can do it differently next time. Learn from the experience and do not let it stop you in your journey to happiness and success.
Step Five: Failing is essential for business growth. In today’s fast pace business world, companies must fail fast in order to succeed.
What this means is that the way we learn is by making mistakes… and the more mistakes we make, the faster the growth. So if we want to learn at a faster pace, we must make mistakes at a faster pace. The key is that you must learn from the mistakes you make so you don’t repeat them.
So – are you going to take the plunge today and do what you are truly passionate about? Are you going to move forward, rather than backward and embrace failure as being your best friend… who will guide you through the most amazing personal growth you will ever have experienced?
Although we all make mistakes, fear of failure doesn’t have to cripple you. As self-help author Susan Jeffers says, “Feel the fear and do it anyway.”
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To Your Happiness & Success
Brian Bush
p.s. The story goes that “Thomas Edison failed more than 1,000 times when trying to create the light bulb”. (The story is often told as 5,000 or 10,000 times depending on the version.) When asked about it, Edison allegedly said, “I have not failed 1,000 times. I have successfully discovered 1,000 ways to NOT make a light bulb.” Great analogy to remember…