By: Stan Popovich
Are you afraid of trying new things due to your fear of not making it?
It can be scary to do things and be afraid of not being successful.
Fortunately, there are ways on how you can overcome your fear of failing in your life.
What Is the Fear of Failure?
Fear of failure is the fear of messing up, not measuring up, or being judged by other people for not accomplishing a goal. A fear of failure takes over when someone wants to avoid feeling shame about not getting an outcome they want or expect.
Symptoms of Fear of Failure
- Feeling on edge or worrying about new or unfamiliar situations
- Avoiding stressful situations completely or withdrawing from opportunities
- Feeling out of control when trying something new
- Experiencing physical symptoms like dizziness, a racing heart, and sweating
- Imagining the worst-case scenario
- Feeling self-conscious about what other people think
- Downplaying your plans or minimizing your success to other people
- Procrastinating or getting distracted from what you need to do
- Feeling discouraged about improving or changing anything in the future
How To Overcome the Fear of Failure
1. Accept that failure is normal: Most people have experienced failure in their life. The ability to overcome obstacles and accept mistakes is a key part of achieving success. By learning from your mistakes, you’re a step closer to reaching your goals. If you fail, remind yourself that it’s normal.
2. Focus on what you’re good at: The key is to try to do things that are within your reach. Every person has their strengths and weaknesses when it comes to doing certain things. Find what you’re good at, develop realistic goals, and make the effort to accomplish what you want done.
3. Take care of yourself: Be kind to yourself if things don’t go your way. Self-care practice is important and necessary when you don’t meet your expectations. Do some activities you enjoy that will manage your stress before making another attempt at your goals.
4. Plan ahead: When you are facing a challenge that might trigger your fear of failing, work on developing alternative plans in case your initial efforts don’t go as planned. Having a plan B can help you feel more secure.
5. Use Self-Visualization: Self-Visualization is a mental practice where you create vivid and detailed images in your mind of yourself achieving desired outcomes with the goal of boosting confidence and motivating action towards those goals. Self-Visualization can manage your fear of failure.
6. Learn to adjust: We fear failure when we feel locked into doing something one way. Being flexible and adapting to challenges can help us avoid failure and soften the blow from any mistakes you make. We will always face challenges in our life such as managing grief and dealing with stress.
7. Break big things down into smaller steps: It’s easy to fear messing up a giant project or not achieving a big goal. When you break down overwhelming situations into smaller steps, the size of your fear will shrink.
8. Focus on what you can control: Look at the big picture and focus on what you can do. Take a moment to evaluate yourself and the entirety of the situation. Determine what is in your control and focus your efforts on those things.
9. Avoid negative thoughts: It’s difficult to concentrate on what you are doing when your mind is overrun with negative self-talk or what might happen. Focusing on the task at hand helps you keep abreast of your current actions rather than going over thoughts and feelings about imagined consequences and perceived shortcomings.
10. Redefine failure: Changing how you think about failure may help reduce your feelings of fear. Failure is part of life and can be an important opportunity to learn and acquire new skills. When dealing with rejection, make it a practice of learning from it. Improve what you did the last time so that when you try again you will not make the same mistakes.
11. Surround yourself with positive people: Your environment can make a huge difference in how you confront and cope with failure. Surround yourself with people who motivate you.
12. Do not give up: It may take a couple of tries to accomplish a certain task. Persistence and patience are important if you want to accomplish anything in life. Do not be in a rush to get things accomplished.
The Best Way to View Failure
Having a fear of failure is normal. It’s also normal to make mistakes. However, the difference is how you handle the emotions connected to failure when you do err.
1. Look for opportunities to learn: Reflect on what you feel you did well. How can you incorporate this into your next steps? What areas do you want to readjust because they didn’t go the way you intended? Apply what you learn, and you’ll easily start to see that failure has some benefits.
2. Don’t give up: It is important not give up and to try again. Determine how you can improve for the next time. Get advice from your family and friends for additional insights on what you can do differently the next time around.
3. Re-evaluate and try again: Carefully reconsider your approach or assessment of a situation, taking new information, and perspectives into account. Take time to analyze what didn’t work in your previous efforts to identify areas for improvement. Consider if there are additional details or insights that could change your perspective on the situation.
4. Focus on the long-term goal: We need to ask ourselves: Will my failures lead to rewards down the line? That’s why goals and commitments are important. Holding a clear long-term goal in mind can help us to tolerate short-term failure.
Get Stan’s Book Today!
Like what you read? You will increase your chances of finding the answers to your mental health issues if you read my book and the free advice on my website. Get my affordable book right now at PayPal, Amazon, or Barnes & Noble.
