I don’t know a force so debilitating as the fear of failure.
It will stop the most determined person from attempting even menial tasks. Being scared to take on something you have never done before, imprisons you to a life of mediocrity. You and not striving to be your best self. And the fear of failure will keep you trapped for as long as you allow it to stay. And it will not stay unless you allow it to. But you have to ask it to leave.
Repeatedly.
The thing with not striving to be your best self is the nagging feeling it leaves you with. Because you know you are allowing that fear to stop you. It is a conscious decision to pass up on doing something difficult that would benefit you. The fact that it is difficult is not only true for you but for many others before you who have tried and failed but kept trying until they succeeded. The thought of failing was anticipated and the risk was accepted. Failing was never considered an embarrassment, but rather a step in the right direction.
Proof that it was worth trying again. And again, and again until you get it right. Until the original benefit is achieved. That “striving to be your best self” feeling. Learning to ride a bicycle or tying your shoelaces, you had to push through some failures before you got it right. But you kept trying because you knew there is an outcome that will improve your life. There was blood and tears shed in the process.
But you persevered.
As an adult attempting new things seems to take on a new risk. The fear of failure becomes a failure to launch. Failure to ship. Not shipping can become a habit. The resistance to start is larger than the perceived benefit. That resistance is so powerful, it will stop a charging Cape buffalo dead in his tracks. And it can happen to anyone. The fear of attempting something and having to endure the difficult part of learning creeps in and causes us to procrastinate.
Before you know it, you are postponing more and more aspects of your life, because the fear has you trapped. The resistance is real. The threat is perceived. Fear of failure comes down to the wrong belief that you are not good enough. Someone or something somewhere in your past allowed you to cast doubt on your abilities, and you started to believe the lie.
Everyone struggles to learn new things, you are not the only one. But starting off other folks build in the fact that they are going to fail, a few times. They build in the vulnerability and the courage it is going to take to achieve this task. They build in a level of acceptable embarrassment, ridicule and resistance they may experience along the way.
And then they launch.
Be brave enough to leap first. Ship your work.
The world needs your work.
Have an awesome weekend and please be generous! 😄
As always, thanks for reading 🙏
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