Being so scared of failing that you don’t even try doing it- Does it seem a familiar feeling to you?! Everyone experiences the fear of failure once in a while. It can immobilize your mental and physical abilities, so you stop moving forward in your life. Reaching an extreme level of fear of failing can overpower every aspect of your life.
Hence, it is necessary to overcome the fear of failing.
Why do you feel scared of failure?
Different people follow a different set of benchmarks, so the definition of failure can mean something else to you than the next person. Our belief systems and values also play a role in defining our concept of winning and failing in life. Some people hold the capacity to take every failure as a learning experience, while some can’t move forward once they fail at doing or achieving something.
Some people feel scared of making mistakes due to unsupportive parents or critical mentors. The humiliation and undermining experiences that happened in childhood can make failure extremely negative. Also, some people cultivate this feeling after going through a traumatic experience.
So, you need to address your definition of failure and list all the reasons why you feel scared of it.
What happens in the fear of failure?
You might experience one or many symptoms, depending on the scale of fear you have for failure. Your ability to indulge in new things reduces, so you stop yourself from going into challenging situations. It can also progress to procrastination and excessive anxiety. So, you start self-sabotaging to avoid anxious feelings.
You only choose projects and situations that you feel assured about completing perfectly. Any challenging situation immediately drops your self-esteem, so you try to dodge it whenever possible.
Ways to conquer your fear of failure
You need to realize and accept that the chances of failure are always there for everyone in doing anything. The act of facing those chances is praise-worthy and courageous.
Keeping that in mind, you can move forward with these ways to overcome your fear of failure:
- Evaluate all possible outcomes
Do you feel scared because of the unknown outcomes of something? Then, you can remove that feeling by looking into all possible outcomes of any decision you make. Look at the best and worst-case scenarios of a decision and prepare a plan for all outcomes. That way, you will be able to push yourself into doing challenging tasks by diminishing the fear of an unknown failure.
- Learn the art of positive thinking
You need to shift your way of perceiving everything that happens in your life. Positive thinking is an effective way to neutralize self-sabotaging thoughts and build confidence. The path of positive thinking goes through thought awareness and rational thinking.
- Always have a plan
Make your Plan A, Plan B, and even a Plan C to assure yourself about doing something in different outcomes. This will boost your confidence to indulge in new activities, experiences, and projects.
Keep on applying these ways and understand how your mind works in different situations. Hopefully, this will help.
