When you fear failure, dread becomes your companion, burying itself into the deep recesses of your brain, its roots an intermingling, a tangled system of webs. You subject yourself to an endless certainty that you will fail no matter what you do. You deprive yourself of self-confidence, giving this sense of insecurity all the permission it needs to ravage your thoughts, emotions, and actions.
You may not realize this, but if kept in check, this fear of failure can prove to be your ally, not your adversary. It can help you plan better, focus better, and prepare better. It becomes your ultimate weapon. But if you are not steady with your grip, it can function like a double-edged sword; you won’t know you’ve been struck until you see blood.
Living in fear can be a paralyzing, isolating existence. We must strive to overcome our fear of failure and overcome the accompanying anxiety. This article will discuss a few ways to manage your anxiety and, by extension, master your fear of failure and turn it to your advantage.
Bulls and Horns – Address Your Fears Head On
The first and foremost thing you need to do is address your fears. To enable yourself to recover, you need to visualize your stressors, picture your causes, and give them shape and substance. It will help you physically locate what you are afraid of – sometimes, trauma can hide things visible in plain sight. Your job is to uncover it. There are professionals, like therapists at Vista Pines Health, that can help you do this. They help you address the deep-seated causes of your fears and help you understand what scares you and why. To solve a problem, your fear of failure, you must first understand it. Vista Pines enables you to heal and grow, overcoming not just this fear of failure but instilling you with the self-confidence you previously lacked.
We recommend addressing your fears professionally.
Change the Rules – Redefine Fear
A smarter way of overcoming failure fears is to create a new perspective entirely. It is an impending force of doom for most of us – but it doesn’t need to be. You can picture failure to be a motivator. Visualize your fear and force your mind to go beyond it. Sure, you are afraid of failure. The only way to avoid crossing paths with this hallway bully is not to fail. Most people will see this as a positive influencer. Your fear of failure could help you succeed this way.
Redefining your fear by considering it as a lesson is another strategy. Reflecting on past failures can help you condition your brain not to repeat them.
Think of your fears like bubbles; they will not last long. You can shorten their life span even further by bursting them.
Boost Your Self-Esteem, Change What Success Means to You
Changing what success means to you can also help you boost your self-esteem. That, in turn, enables you to succeed, overcoming your fear of failure. Our minds are incredibly useful instruments; those terrified of failing are plagued by negative thoughts that force them to focus on failing. Success, to them, becomes a vague concept, a distant memory, an unachievable dream.
What if success could be something they can achievable after failure?
Everybody has a different definition of success. You can change what yours means to you. Let your fears be the bridge you must cross to get to the other side where your success lies. You open doors for yourself when you allow yourself to embrace your vulnerabilities. It serves as a major contributor to a self-esteem boost.
Failing Is a Good Thing – Fail As Much As You Can
Sounds strange? But it’s not.
Even Edison took this approach when 99 of his ways to make a light bulb had come to naught. What did the great Edison do? Give up? No. He deemed those 99 tries as his achievements! Requoting him, I did not fail 99 times; I instead learned 99 ways how not to make a light bulb. Failing is a good thing. When you hit rock bottom, there is nowhere to go but up. Better rock bottom, then shooting through the skies, soaring, than stagnant out of fear of that rock bottom.
What goes up must come down. But then again, what goes down, must come back up.
Do not be afraid of failure – fail as much as you can. The more mistakes we make, the wiser we become. Success does not happen overnight and most certainly does not happen without failure. Unless you are perfect, which frankly no one is, you can succeed without failing.
Opt for a Logical Approach
Overthinking about failing? Give your brain a break – it deserves one. The dreadfulness of failure will loom over you when what you wish to achieve appears difficult or overwhelming. To eat a cake, you must first cut it into pieces – you cannot devour it whole. When you break your project or task down into small, achievable goals, the overall achievement will not feel as daunting. With chunks to work on, you will feel your spirits lift. It is doable, you might say.
And you will do it.
Setting yourself up for success – or failure – is in your hands. With a logical approach, your fear of failure will no longer be some tall, dark, mystic entity mocking you from the skies, belittling you. Instead, it will be a challenging, but not insurmountable, challenge you must overcome. With the correct logical approach, you will overcome it.
Conclusion:
You can overcome your fear of failure on your own or through a therapist. If you are looking for help, Vista Pines Health has all sorts of therapists and therapies. But letting go of your fear is an internal struggle. So long as you can own these fears and all the thoughts that accompany you, you will see the light at the end of the tunnel.
You will have to decide if there is a light at the tunnel’s end– an exit or a train. You see, you have more power over your fears than you realize.
