Afraid to Fail?
If you have been following along the “365 Days of Letting Go” challenge, and are still on the sidelines, maybe you are afraid to fail! We’re on day 22. It’s the perfect time to jump in!
How You do anything is how you do everything
Don’t Stop
The secret to winning is don’t stop. Use your mistakes to go further with each attempt.
Success is far more about attitude and perseverance than luck or talent. The person who stays in the race has a far better chance at succeeding than one who never entered or quit.
So, if being afraid to fail keeps you out of the game, you have failed before you ever tried.
At least go down fighting! That’s what life is for. Daring.
It really doesn’t matter if you finish on top. It matters that you had the experience.
Everything is Learned
If you get nothing else from my blog, please let it be this: Everything is learned.
If a fear of failure is learned, it can be unlearned. And if it can be unlearned, YOU can learn something different, do something different, and be something different.
Some people are fearless and see setbacks simply as hiccups. They are bumps along the road that make the ride more exciting.
Some see every pothole as a sign to turn back.
Both have the same odds, yet the fearless one has the clear advantage because of mindset.
Growth Mindset
The growth mindset is a term coined by Carol Dweck. It is the belief that people can improve their skills and abilities with practice. The ceiling of what is achievable is not set in stone.
Having a growth mindset is the difference between loving the learning process and growing as you age and fearing being exposed and hiding your whole life.
The growth mindset reframes the whole game by essentially stating that as long as you’re in the game, you’re growing, benefitting, and learning, so you’ve already won.
“Failure” implies that there is an end game. You either hit the target or you don’t.
With the growth mindset, failure is part of the game, and hitting the target is almost beside the point. In either case, you don’t stop playing because you never stop learning. The things you can achieve and learn are endless!
The big takeaway? Everything is learned.
You learned to fear failure. Maybe you were criticized, not allowed to try, coddled, or didn’t have great tutors so you thought you weren’t up to snuff.
It’s only true if you accept it’s true. So, I’m challenging you right now to do something different. Fear the fear and do whatever it is you want to do anyway.
Emotions won’t kill you. When you get to the other side with whatever you are setting out to achieve, you will ask yourself why you didn’t do this sooner.
It’s okay to be afraid to fail. Just don’t let it stop you. And if you blow past that fear over and over again, one day you will notice it’s no longer there.