The concept of failure can cause us to hide and limit ourselves, and fear of failure and procrastination can be closely linked. In this article you can learn 6 helpful tips to stop limiting yourself through fear of failure.
What is Failure?
Failure can be described as lack of success, non-fulfilment, defeat, frustration, foundering, and/or coming to nothing. While in some situations you can empirically measure that a given result was not achieved, it is very rare, I would say impossible, to have a situation involving humans where nothing at all is gained.
One of the foundational principles of Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) is that there is no failure, only feedback. Failure is only a definition, not a truth. It is simply one way of perceiving an experience.
Failure and Shame
Failure and shame are closely linked. Shame is a painful feeling of humiliation and distress caused by the consciousness of wrong or foolish behavior. Shame brings a sense of unworthiness. When we feel failure we often feel shame as well, and both feelings are stimulated by our perception of what other people think or expect of us. Even when we beat ourselves up about something we didn’t get right, it is largely based on our internalized perception of how others would view what we did. If we were in an environment where nobody else would ever know what we did or didn’t do, or one where everybody was completely accepting that all effort is simply experience and learning, then we would feel little or any failure or shame.
Failure versus Growth
One of the most important things you can learn is what doesn’t work. When you have an experience of something not working, and can reflect on it, and understand the reasons it did not work, then you have valuable information to help you achieve more success or fulfillment moving forward.
This is one of the concepts of a growth mind-set.
However, two things often get in the way of this: our ego mind’s need to be valued, and what we have had modeled and taught to us.
In our modern society, doing and achievement are most overtly and dominantly valued, and success and achievement in the adult world is mostly measured in terms of the amount of money gained.
Our ego mind desires to be acknowledged, but it is also fear based. Our sub-conscious mind prefers to avoid anything new, or any kind of change because it equates change and the unknown with being unsafe. When we operate from this fear we can stay in a current uncomfortable situation because our sub-conscious mind tells us that our known discomfort is less of a threat than any possible unknown.
Human beings also have a survival based negativity bias which causes us to be focused on any possible threats to our safety and wellbeing. This is why we are naturally more likely to focus on what could go wrong.
I see all of this manifested in some of the young people I interact with as an unwillingness to engage and try things. These young people have the capabilities needed to achieve success, but their fear of failure causes them to either not attempt it at all, or to procrastinate and avoid taking action until they absolutely have to. Some of them hide in the perceived safety of successfully not doing it. Others avoid doing anything until the pressure of necessity overrides their fear of failure, rather than openly making an effort and not doing as well as they had hoped, or as other students have done, and having to deal with uncomfortable feelings of disappointment and their efforts being de-valued.
I have also perceived all of this personally as a sense of “I am not making much money in my business, therefore what I am offering is not of value, therefore I am not of value”. When I faced the fact that I couldn’t support myself financially from my business, even after giving it all I had and doing everything that was recommended to achieve success, and went and got a job, I felt a sense of shame and failure. I tried to hide my lack of financial success for a long time, but when I took on an employed position it felt like I was announcing to the world that I wasn’t capable of successfully running a business; that I had failed.
When we hold on to these kinds of thoughts we limit ourselves; we don’t fully express our capabilities and creativity, we limit our connections with others through hiding behind masks and projected personas, and we miss out on opportunities to grow and expand.
However, when a lot of this thinking and behaviour is both wired in us, and then heavily reinforced by society, how do you break free of it?
How Do We Break Through Fear of Failure?
1. Foster Awareness
Awareness is always the first step of any growth. Reading this article is a good first step in breaking through fear of failure because now you have an understanding of where the fear of failure comes from, and how it can show up in our lives.
Mindfulness, journaling and meditation practices can also help you to gain greater awareness of yourself when you dissociate from your thoughts and emotions, and observe them with a level of objectivity.
Awareness can also
come from considering open questions such as:
– What have I learned from this experience?
– What have been the positive outcomes of this?
– What would happen if I truly valued myself and my contribution?
2. Develop a Growth Mind-set
A growth mind-set involves the following beliefs and behaviors:
– talents can be developed and any skill can be learned through practice
– take appropriate risks with the understanding that some will gain successful results, and some will be learning experiences
– the key focus is on what important and useful information can be learned from an experience
– collaboration is favored over competition
– results are achieved best through information sharing, innovation, seeking feedback and acknowledging errors
These beliefs and behaviours do not support the concept of failure.
When you accept that all experience is simply feedback and learning, you free yourself to step into a world of limitless possibilities.
3. Practice Appreciation
Failure is focusing on all the things we didn’t do, and didn’t achieve. Therefore, you can counteract this by focusing on appreciating all the things you did do, and did receive. Fear of failure focuses on all the things you worry that you can’t do, and you can counteract that by asking yourself instead; “What CAN I do?”
Appreciating things we did do and did receive in the past, or as we have experienced them, builds our confidence to attempt new experiences going forward. Consciously focusing on what you can do also reprograms your mind to be more likely to notice and think of positive things, thus overwriting your natural negativity bias.
By creating a ladder of positive and empowering meaning, you effectively change the direction of your life and provide yourself with rational, proven reasons your success will continue.
Tony Robbins
4. Re-frame How You See It
One of the processes in the NLP toolbox is Reframing. It is a simple technique, but can be very powerful. Reframing is opening your mind to perceive a situation in a more empowering way. It is based on the understanding that there are many different ways to interpret an experience, and that the meaning we choose to give an experience creates how life is for us.
I re-framed how I looked at my business in light of also now being in paid employment. I realized that I didn’t need to see it as all or nothing i.e. that if my business wasn’t making enough to support me financially that it had no worth at all, and that therefore I had failed. I focused instead on the fact that a lot of people run a business as well as being in paid employment, and that being in paid employment gives me a lot of opportunities for new learning and interactions that I wouldn’t have had otherwise. It also frees me up to focus on doing what I really love in my business and the message I am sharing, rather than doing things largely to generate income.
5. Change What You Value
Practice adopting the values of a growth mindset. Changing what you value and focus on will change how you perceive your actions and experiences, and how you perceive life, creates how life is for you.
Value curiosity over correctness.
Value learning over achieving end outcomes.
Value contribution over competition.
6. Base Your Self-Worth on Being Not Doing
Recently I asked myself the question: if I stop doing, am I still enough? Most of us grow up with a belief that we are not inherently worthy and that we have to earn our worth through what we do. If you choose to believe that you have to earn your worth through what you do you will always feel a sense of unease, and a constant need to do more. You will rarely, if ever, feel that you are enough.
If your worth is based on what you do and achieve, then fear of failure will be significant for you. When you choose to believe that you are inherently worthy, constantly worthy just by being who you are, then the concept of failure becomes irrelevant.
You Can Free Yourself From Fear of Failure
By adopting a growth mind-set and shifting what you choose to believe and focus on, you can be empowered to free yourself from the fear of failure. When you accept that all experience is simply feedback and an opportunity to learn and grow, then you can connect more meaningfully with others and be open to a world of limitless possibilities.
If you are looking for more quick and easy ways to develop your confidence and sense of self-love and self-worth then check out my book 10 Steps to Happiness.
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