5 Ways Our Fear of Failure Handcuffs Our Ability to Succeed

Fear. We all have it to varying degrees and for varying reasons. Some people get weak in the knees when they see spiders, some can’t even look towards a cliff without breaking out in hives. Even a Texas Ranger’s All Star Player has a bit of coulrophobia.

But why do people fear failure?

Many factors, not the least of which is societal expectation, influence our ability to accept failure both in others and in ourselves. We live in an age of finger pointing and we are terrified of the finger being pointed in our direction. For whatever reason, we have become paralyzed at the thought of making a mistake.

But mistakes are one of life’s bumpers. Much like we raise bumpers at the bowling alley to keep our bowling ball in the lane and out of the gutter, mistakes help keep us from wandering too far off of our own paths. If we are paying attention, we can identify the mistakes we’ve made and take action to get ourselves back on track. The more mistakes we make and learn from, the farther down the path we are likely to travel.

So why do we allow ourselves to be handcuffed to this often paralyzing fear of making mistakes when logically, we know that some of the world’s greatest success stories were often born out of multiple failures?

1. We give up before we start. We have a great idea or an audacious goal. Those close to us are encouraging and believe in what want to achieve. And then we forget about it for reasons we sometimes can’t even identify. This is called procrastination. In the moment, we are driven and optimistic but once the actual work should begin, we are distracted by something we want more in the next moment.

2. We didn’t want it badly enough. Perhaps you’ve heard the story about the young man who asks the guru to teach him how to be successful. In response, the guru holds the young man’s head under water for a minute or two until he death was near. At this point the guru lifts the young man out of the water and tells him “When you want to succeed as badly as you just now wanted to breathe, you will be successful.” Lack of passion is a dream-killer.

3. We hit a bump in the road. How many times have we felt the effects of a setback in our plans? Fear of failure keeps us on this side of the bump in the road. We become defined by the setback and sometimes believe it to be insurmountable. Why? Most of the time, we feel the pain of the setback and don’t want to subject ourselves to those feelings again. So we give up at the onset. This is a lack of perseverance. If we want to overcome the fear of feeling these feelings, we have to subject ourselves to the possibility of feeling them again or we’ll never make it through to feelings of accomplishment.

4. We don’t surround ourselves with people who believe in us. Somewhere along the line, we get it into our heads that asking for help is a sign of weakness. Embracing this fear and admitting we don’t know where to go or what to do is one of the strongest things we can do for ourselves. The most successful people in the world have mentors; people who believe in them. These relationships are critical for those times when fear is smacking us in the face and we want to run. These are the people we need most during these times to remind us of who we are and why we are chasing our dreams.

5. We don’t believe in ourselves. It is mission critical to believe in ourselves before we set out to achieve a goal. If we don’t have an innate belief that we can achieve anything we set our minds to, we open the door for fear to squash any resolve we may have. The more we fear, the wider we open the door. It’s a vicious cycle and fear will win every time.

So how do we remove the handcuffs of fear?

Slam the door in its face and get a mentor who believes in you and your vision. Determine how badly you want something before you set out to attain it and if you don’t want it more than the air you breathe, find another dream. Without this depth of determination, you will never have the strength to push through the inevitable setbacks guaranteed to appear at the most inconvenient times.

The key to the handcuffs is found not in the fear itself, but in how the fear is managed. Be afraid. Then push forward anyway.