Our fear of failure shows up in many curious ways. Sometimes it’s accidentally forgetting to do something really important, sometimes it’s busywork that makes you feel like you are getting stuff done, but doesn’t actually step you any closer to your goal, sometimes it’s only half showing up so you can say that you failed because you didn’t really try.
The common thread is that our fear of failure is most often the reason why we fail. It happens when we give in to the negative self-talk, when we overwhelm ourselves with so many complicated details that we get bogged down or when we just get plain stuck in that never ending loop of paralysis by analysis. This is the reason we are our own worst enemies.
Understanding the Psychology of Failure
Ever have someone tell you NOT to do something so you end up doing it MORE? Like when you get yourself all psyched up about mispronouncing a name, only to overthink it and mess it up? Or when someone tells you not to stare at so-and-so’s scar and that’s all you can do?
What we focus on expands and grows, especially if that something is intensely negative and self-destructive. So when you listen to that little voice that says, “Don’t fail, don’t mess up, don’t embarrass yourself,” you get so overwhelmed and paralyzed by fear that you either get stuck and can’t move forward or you secretly sabotage yourself.
How to Make Your Fear Your Frenemy
Just as fear of failure can hold us back, it can also propel us forward. It’s the fear of losing a client that gives us that extra oomph to hit that deadline and it’s the fear of not achieving a target goal that has us obsessively checking metrics and doubling and tripling our efforts to reach it.
How to stay on the right side of fear of failure and use it to stay motivated:
Know the Warning Signs – Learn to recognize the workings of negative fear and quickly turn it into a positive motivator. Dragging your heels, procrastinating, renewed enthusiasm for busywork are all signs that self-sabotage is at work. Stop and take a look behind the behavior for what is really going on and find ways to turn it into a positive motivator.
Let Go of Outside Judgment – Ignore what the little voice is telling you about how others will see your failure. Ask ANY entrepreneur and they will tell you they have had their fair share of failures – big and small. Chances are you are your harshest critic and your entrepreneurial peers will be a lot more sympathetic than you give them credit for.
Focus on Key Milestones – Often fear and overwhelm takes over when you are trying to tackle an enormous audacious goal and the end seems so far away that you can’t possible fathom how you are going to get there. Don’t try – just focus on succeeding at the next series of steps!
Do the What-If Exercise – If the fear of failure has you so wound up that you can’t even take a single step, do the ‘What-if’ exercise. What if you fail? What happens then? How bad would it really be? What would you do to deal with that situation? How can you avoid the worst-case scenario? By breaking it down into what exactly there is to be afraid of, more often than not you will discover that even failure wouldn’t be that bad.
How do you deal with fear when it has you stuck on go? Share your tips in the comments below!
