How to overcome the fear of failure or making mistakes?

There are no failures in life, only results and lessons learnt. The way you look at it makes all the difference in being able to move forward courageously or being stuck where you are. When you change your view of life to be bigger and wider, you will realise that no incident is a failure, as they were just experiences that have weaved the path to bringing you where you are now, which from where I see it, it isn’t too bad at all. You’ve got the time and eyesight to sit back and read this article, don’t you?

When you change your fears of the unknown and complaints of how things don’t go your way, to gratitude for what you already have, you will slowly find that there is less and less to be fearful of in your life. A great acronym for FAIL is First Attempt In Learning which I picked up from a dear friend and author/trainer, Bob Urichuck on his recent visit to Mumbai.

Fear is just false evidence appearing real and if you let this prevent you from moving forward in the direction of your dreams, you will always be unfulfilled.

What if I believed the countless people who told me that it was very hard to write a book, or to get published or to work for myself, or to lose weight or to be happy single again? What if I had allowed all these opinions to paralyse me?

The following is a small excerpt from my latest book “Don’t Think of a Blue Ball”:

“Decision makers are not afraid of making mistakes. They know that if they make a “wrong-decision”, they will learn from it and move on. Who knows what the knowledge and learning from those unfavourable experiences have saved us from.

Indecision however, likens to hesitating at the traffic signal when it is amber and about to turn red. When we hesitate for too long, we put ourselves in a vulnerable position. Speed through or stop, evaluate the risks, mentally calculate the distance you have to go versus the oncoming traffic, choose one, and live with the results.”

Even if a carefully thought out predicament has a 50 percent chance of failing, the side that you focus your energies and intentions on will have more chances of “winning”, unfortunately our culture has trained us to not get excited about good things before they have happened as we are worried about “nazar”, when it is that positive expectation that actually helps you feel, act and speak in ways that will support your project going the way you want it to.

Some of the common fears I help people with:

Fear of failing in:

Health and self image:

Say you have tried to lose weight or change the shape of your body before, and did not succeed, don’t let this stop you from pursuing this desire again. If it is something you really want, ask yourself why you want it, what is the feeling you desire from achieving this desire and then look at your old strategy, study what worked and didn’t work, then seek out and speak to or study 3 people either who have themselves successfully achieved the same or experts in the field and then put your new recipe into action!

Relationships:

Not having faith in a relationship is the perfect way to mess it up, if there are ingredients that are either missing or that do not suit you, then perhaps this person is wrong for you anyway, let them go, but if you are just afraid because you’ve lost in love, let go of that past fear and give this new opportunity your all.

Career and finances:

What if you are afraid that your business venture or a promotion you desire will fail and many people have told you that times are hard, your idea is good but the market is not ready, your overheads will be too high, there’s too much competition, well, you’ve been speaking to the wrong people, again, look for 3 people who have either succeeded in a similar venture or who are experts in the field, speak to them and then make your decision, being well informed but not fearful.

Don’ts

• Don’t hold on to regret, let it go. Call it a lesson and move on
• Don’t blame people and circumstances, you had the power to choose and you did based on all the knowledge and experience you had at that time. Call it experience and let it go.
• Don’t focus on all the things that can go wrong, be aware for sure but keep your focus on the positive side.

Dos

• Do accept and acknowledge your emotion of FEAR and yet do it anyway. That is true courage.
• Do take actions and decisions based on your goals not your fears or emotions.
• Do remember that the fear of failing is more paralyzing and will stop you from living 100% and truly creating joy in your life

As Albert Einstein said, “A person who never made a mistake, never tried anything new”

NB:

Some people suffer from extreme anxiety and if this does prevent you from living a productive life, then try alternative relaxation techniques or healing, work with a coach or therapist to help you set some goals and move towards them, if you still find it too difficult to deal with your anxiety, see psychiatrists and insist on a proper and thorough diagnosis before taking any kind of anti-anxiety medications, which can get you in a worse state and be very difficult to get off.