What if fear of failure is the only thing standing between you and the life you actually want?

How many of us are afraid to put ourselves out there because we don’t want to fail? It’s a real dilemma – we don’t want to try something and look stupid so we can often just play it safe and stay in our lane. But progress and change require something different. It’s true that ‘outside of our comfort zone is where the magic happens’. So how can we build the courage and confidence to try?

In Amazon CEO, Andy Jassey’s top tips for success, he lists ‘don’t be afraid to fail’ as essential for invention. Inventing or re-inventing yourself is as important as anything else. Life has many chapters and we may need to invent ourselves many times. The key to pushing through a fear of failure is resilience and for me, a major part of resilience is learning.

Over the last couple of years, I have been going through my own reinvention with seismic shifts in my personal life leading to an adjustment in priorities. When this transition really hit a crisis point, I felt that my personal brand had fallen flat and I needed to really dig in to redefine my vision and goals.

It pushed me to develop my own consultancy offer and share my ideas with the world which is certainly outside of my comfort zone. There has been lots of trying new things and learning as I go. I’m very much on board with the idea that it is ‘better to ship passion than wait for perfection’ which is hard but I know that over time the approach will develop and whatever I do now, will transform gradually to become the final product.

Brené Brown puts Roosevelte’s ‘Man in the Arena’ quote at the heart of much of her work on vulnerability and I keep this close as I try new things. It basically says that the one who tries will either know the triumph of high achievement or ‘at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly’ – the idea of this makes it much easier for me to push through the barriers.

Why are we afraid to fail? For many, failure connects to their self-worth and self-esteem. It’s the nervous system warning you of a threat and we want to avoid the shame and embarrassment of not achieving our goals.

Here are 3 things we can do to overcome the fear and remove barriers to success:

1. Build a deep sense of self-worth – really work on you and know who you are. Focus on finding stability within yourself and understanding your worth on your own terms, not based on the validation of strangers.
   
2. Identify what you are afraid of – consider what it is you want to do and identify what you are afraid of. Consider how likely it is that these things will happen, how others might perceive the ‘failure’ (it is often not the way you think!) and what you can put in place to reduce the risk of things not working out.

3. Focus on the learning – think through in advance what you can learn if it doesn’t go exactly as you planned. Manage your expectations and consider next steps so that you can build or pivot if you don’t achieve your ideal outcome.

I’ve seen many people miss out on opportunities because they feel the fear and let it dominate their actions so whatever it is you dream of, consider how you can just get started and ‘do the thing!’.

Have you let fear hold you back? Or have you been able to learn from failure? I’d love to hear your story! Drop it in the comments and let’s learn from each other.

Image: Pete Linforth from Pixabay