Overcome the Fear of Failure

Posted on August 24, 2018

We are born with the desire to accomplish great things in life. It portrays our ability as humans to digest information, plan and find solutions to problems. It gives us a sense of power and control over our environment and obstacles in life. However, our fear of being unsuccessful is something that’s acquired. It is caused by being ridiculed or mocked by people around us when we fail.

We fail at times due to imperfect information. We can never always be fully aware or be able to control everything. Hence, experiencing failure occasionally is unpreventable. When we are forced to make certain transitions in life we are apprehensive about, or face an issue we have no control of, we might feel upset or even devastated thinking we have failed ourselves. The truth is that, we haven’t, and we should not hold ourselves accountable for such inevitable failures.

Instead of the word ‘failure’, use ‘inconvenient’. It is a more realistic and accurate definition of what we are facing or have faced. It is unreal and unfair of us to expect ourselves to anticipate and stop all problems in our lives. Being afraid to fail lowers our drive to succeed, makes us defensive and stops us from progressing. It also leads us to approach things in a more difficult way such that we can find excuses to blame others or any external factors if we fail to succeed.

The following methods are ways we can lower our fear of failure:

1. Concentrate on obtaining information, do not care about others’ opinions of you or the choices you make

2. View your plans in achieving your goals through your own eyes. Worrying about how others perceive you tires you out and makes you form inaccurate negative impressions of yourself.

3. Take every failure as a lesson to be learnt. No matter how insignificant it might seem, it is a small progress made.

4. Do not judge yourself. Instead, understand the reason behind every decision you make and the way you act towards certain situations. You are your own person, hence you’re capable of telling yourself what to do and making the right choices in life.

5. Do your best, that’s what’s most important. Do not blame yourself for a single failure as it leads to fear of failure that prevents us from making efforts to try for potential successes.

Failure is inevitable and a natural process in life, but fearing failure isn’t. Do not let fear prevent you from taking risks to achieve the greatest things in life.


Category(s):Adjusting to Change / Life Transitions, Fear, Life Purpose / Meaning / Inner-Guidance, Positive Psychology

Source material from Psychology Today