The fear of failure is apparent across all walks of life. If you struggle with this fear holding you back, you are not alone! A lot of times, people don’t even realize what is holding them back from reaching their full potential and achieving their dreams. Often times, we don’t even try because the fear is so pervasive. Fear of failure is associated with a risk of some kind. The risk may vary in its severity but, none the less, the individual still sees a risk.
Risk Creates Fear
Many times, the risk is only a perceived risk. Risk that only exists in your head. The risk that we perceive is generally driven by how we believe others may view us or of what may happen based on the potential failure. It is possible that your perceived risk could be real. It’s also possible that it may not be real if you fail. Make sure to you can differentiate perceived vs real risk. What people think of you, is not real risk. If you struggle in this area, check out previous blog on how we evaluate and compare ourselves to others.
On the other hand, sometimes there is real risk involved in taking ‘your shot’. It may require you to give up current employment, threaten an existing relationship or may even carry inherent personal risk. Sometimes taking ‘your shot’ can impact you so you’ve got to reason through what risk you can tolerate. Sometimes, the risk may be too great but never let the risk itself, or the fear of failure, be the ultimate deterrent. Instead, make it a conscious choice of when you will and will not take that shot, on your terms and not out of fear!
Failure is Scary
Everybody should accept the fact that failing is scary! It’s easy to say that we should not be afraid to fail or failure is just an opportunity to get better or any other saying that promotes getting over the fear of failure. In practice though, it’s not that easy! First thing, we must accept failure. However, this doesn’t mean that we accept failure as the end result, it just means that we accept failure as a possible outcome in the process!
So, how do we normalize failure and start to deal with our fear of failure? It starts with the following five steps:
1. Do Not Let Failure Define You
When you fail, don’t give up. Don’t let the act of failing suppress your actions to succeed. Instead, use it as fuel to propel you further than you believed possible. Walk into every opportunity planning to succeed but prepared to fail. If you do fail, just keep pushing forward – if you don’t quit, it’s not the end!
2. Keep Trying New Things
When you try something and you fail, don’t stop trying new things! In fact, your willingness to try new things provides opportunities to deal with failure and setbacks. Some things you try will be less important to you than others, meaning there is less pressure and less real risk to you. These are great opportunities to practice our ability to work through our fear of failure. So, try new things any time you get the chance.
3. Put in the Work
Practice creates confidence! Many times, a fear of failure is driven off of a lack of self-confidence. However, one of the easiest ways to gain confidence is to practice. Put in the work and learn to enjoy the process! Check out Power of Practice to get a complete breakdown of how self-confidence is influenced by practice. You’ll be happy you did!
4. Positive Self Talk
We have the power to control our own thoughts depending on what we tell ourselves. The conversation that we have with ourselves can propel or deflate you. It’s up to you! In the Power of Self Talk, we cover how self-talk influences our confidence and our actions. So, be positive with yourself to overcome your fear of failing!
5. Surround Yourself with ‘Real’ Support
Supportive friends and family are important to your overall ability to handle success and especially failure. You want people in your life that can help pick you up, help motivate you to move on to the next play or the next opportunity. These people must be supportive but they must also be ‘REAL’. This means, they must be honest! You don’t want people to just tell you what you want to hear, they need to tell you what you need to hear to help you in your journey.
Fear of Failure in Sports
The epitome of sports is learning to take your ‘shots’ and dealing with the consequences. An inability to deal with failure would make it very difficult to participate in sports because failure is so common. Think of baseball hitting percentage or basketball shooting percentage. Failure is more common than success!
Coaches and players must have realistic expectation of what success is within a sport. Ultimately, attitude and effort should be the primary focus with an understanding of playing as a team and functioning as a team. We also must understand that failure within an action doesn’t constitute failure as a whole. You will miss shots, you will strike out, and you will miss a tackle! None of these constitute ultimate failure. So, just keep playing with great attitude and effort!
Redefine Success
If you continue to struggle, perhaps you need to redefine success. I invite you to check out Measuring Success in Youth Sports for more information on this topic. I hope this will help you find your internal strength to persevere through failure and achieve to your potential! Believe in yourself and put in the work and you will go far!
BtL
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