Do you have a fear of failure? Does it coincide with a fear of being laughed at, teased, ridiculed and judged? For many people, the fear of failure is so strong that they resort to avoidance techniques such as procrastination, excuses, rationalization, judging others and anger to sabotage their success before they even have the chance to fail. In other words, they fail before they can actually fail.
Doesn’t make any sense, does it?
Sadly, that doesn’t stop millions of people from doing it every single day.
If those above behaviors had you squirming in your chair just a bit, don’t dismay.
You are in good company. People from all corners of the world admit to being afraid of failure in both their personal and business lives. Their egos, either covertly or overtly, stop them from enjoying the success they are capable of because of a fear of making mistakes.
They imagine failure and awfulize imaginary outcomes, playing out embarrassing scenes in their mental movie theater, complete with ridicule and shame. They hear the laughter. The jeers. They feel the shame crawl up their skin- even though nothing has really actually happened. Their heart pounds. Their blood pressure rises. They feel sick to their stomach and their mind snaps.
They think, “Never again. No way. I’m not doing that. You won’t catch me dead. Not a chance.”
They are finished before they ever begin, do to an imaginary experience that was never real to begin with.
Two Powerful Tools to Let Go of the Fear of Failure
The imagination is a very powerful tool. The good news is that you can harness it as a tool for success rather than let it railroad you into premature failure.
The trick is in taking a proactive stance and controlling the movie playing on your internal movie screen rather than letting it create a horror film of it’s own.
Write Your Own Script. How would you like the outcome to be? Find a quiet place, a pen and paper and write down the outcome that you want to happen. Go into great detail. Be specific about who is there, what they say, how they look. Are they smiling? Cheering? Clapping? Is the crowd roaring?
Notice how it feels. As you begin to write about this wonderful experience, notice your body’s reaction. Are you getting excited? Nervous? Happy? Jittery? Why? What’s going on? Sometimes a fear of failure is also laced with a hidden little fear of success as well. Because we don’t know it, we might sabotage ourselves to keep us from getting there. Got a little stage fright? Fear of crowds? Take note here. What can you do about it? Maybe you can write yourself a manager who will keep you nice and safe and protect you from the crowds. There. Does that feel better?
Practice Graciousness. Ever hear the idea that what you give out comes back to you three-fold? If you change ONLY ONE THING in your life, changing this will change EVERYTHING. This is what you do. Sit down quietly, and close your eyes. Think about someone you know, and imagine them being extremely successful. Play out an entire scenario in your mind’s eye of them doing something very important to them, having it turn out wonderful and having them being very happy. Imagine yourself being very happy for them. Clap, applaud, cheer! Celebrate their success. See them in your mind as larger than life, infinitely happy, filled with love, health and success.
Now— do the exact same thing for yourself.
A Bonus!!
If you really, really want to kick the fear of making mistakes, then quit judging others. Quit being critical and quit putting people down. Our fear of making mistakes is tied to a fear of being judged, ridiculed and criticized. We don’t want to be laughed at, bullied or whispered about behind closed doors. When we are the ones doing it to others, it’s more natural to assume that since we are doing it, that others are doing it to us as well. Also, our subconscious minds soaks up every word we say and doesn’t care whether we are saying it about someone else, or ourselves. So if we have made some careless remark about how fat someone looks on stage, you can be sure that our minds are jotting down little insecure notes about how bad we are going to look up there as well.
After all, what we send out, comes back at least three-fold.
Want to lose that fear of failure? Let go of writing negative stories in your mind, of judging and being critical, let go of putting other people down. Let go of the need to do it perfectly, or needing to get it right all the time. If something goes wrong, let go of shame.
Embrace laughter, graciousness, kindness toward others and forgiveness and love for yourself.
Remember, your mind is watching you.