Fear is like a toxic poison – it seems you can’t get rid of it by any
means and it prevents you from living the life you always wanted to
live. I was being “poisoned” with fear for myself and
continuously worried about the events that might take place in the
future, which included – besides many other things – messing up with my
grades or not being able to master the defiances of my life. Even though
I wasn’t a scared chicken at all, fear remained a part of my thoughts
and often prevented me from falling asleep. Generally speaking I would
say that all my worries had one thing in common: the fear of failure.
Overcome the fear of failure
1 Having the right mindset about failure
When I was about 20 years old, I’ve made an interesting conclusion
that would help me to view failure from a completely different
perspective. I started to acknowledge failure as exactly what it is: an
unavoidable part of everyone’s life – nothing more and nothing less. I
knew that I had failed in the past and that I was going to fail every
once in a while in the future, even if I did my very best to avoid this.
There was simply no way around it, so I started to change my attitude
towards failure in general. I realized that, even though I experienced
every failure as a dolorous event that slammed me on the ground, every
one of them helped me in the long term to become the man that I am
today. My failures had not only helped me to improve myself and avoid
similar mistakes in the future, but also opened up many other
opportunities and chances for me; I just had to spot and identify them.
2 What’s better: failing vs. not having tried at all?
I nearly forgot to tell you what the “interesting conclusion”
was I’ve talked about in the above. Back when I was 20 years old I had
realized that there was only one way for me to avoid every failure
straight away from the beginning: by not trying at all, which is – at
least for me – identical to not having lived anyways. I reasoned that
the sole attempt of trying to avoid any kind of failure by any means
would lead to the irrevocable mistake of not trying at all, which isn’t a
promising option.
3 Imagining the “grandparents-scenario”
When I’m an old man, I would like to tell my grandchildren about all
the challenges I endured during my life, laugh with them about the
clumsy mistakes I made and show them all kinds of opportunities that
have come into my life after I had failed. Nevertheless, one thing that I
never ever want to have to tell my grandchildren are the words, “it could have been“!
I really don’t want to look back on my life only to discover all the
great chances and exciting events I’ve missed, because of my fear of the
possibility to fail every once in a while. The – what I call –
“grandparents-scenario” tremendously helps me to clarify that it is not
failure I should be worried about, but what results out of this fear:
being too scared to do what I had planned to do!
4 Taking one step at a time
When we’re facing really big challenges in our lives, we tend to get
overwhelmed quite fast, simply by looking at the full extent of what
lies in front of us. The most likely response towards this unknown
situation is fear, which finally might paralyze and prevent us from
approaching the challenge. The best advice that can be given in these
situations is to approach the challenge one step at a time, even if you
might experience some fear. Doing so will help you to get used to the
new situation and will reduce your fears of the possibility that you
could fail, especially when you experience your first sense of
achievement.
And always keep in mind… There is no reason to be afraid of failure, if you never want to ask yourself the question, “what would have happened, if I had tried?”
Steve is a student and blogger and writes on his blog about personal development, methods to think outside the box, tips for students and motivation techniques, amongst many other interesting topics.
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