Are you Scared of Failure?

The most common fear that has been voted on by you throughout my blog, and one that will stop you from adopting a more Compelling future, is the fear of failure. People who have a fear of failure often have difficulty in moving forward to achieve their ambitions. This usually occurs because of a negative mindset that tells them they will fail whatever they do. As a result this fear of failure stops people from achieving things, even when they know they are perfectly capable of achieving it.

Do You Suffer From A Fear Of Failure?
If you think you have a fear of failure that is holding you back, here are a few questions you can use to determine if you have a fear of failure.

Will You Work Harder To Avoid Failure, Than You Will To Succeed?

Those who suffer from the fear of failure are often motivated to work harder not to fail, rather than work harder to succeed. Failure is something that is always in the back of their mind, as a result the actions they take are done to avoid failure, rather than gain success. Characteristically this involves “playing it safe”, not taking too many risks and staying inside your comfort zone. On the flip side, people who do not suffer from the fear of failure are motivated to work hard in order to win or be the best. As a result their actions are much more audacious and they are prepared to take greater risks, and get beyond their comfort zone.

Do You Work Harder To Protect What You Presently Have? Or Work Harder To Get Something Superior?

If you work harder to keep something you have, this may be because you have an unintentional fear of failure. Since you are always apprehensive about loosing what you have, you are consequently motivated to keep what you presently have, rather than try to get something better. Again, this involves staying in your comfort zone, and not taking a lot of risk.

Are you Living Beneath Your True Potential?

As you can see from the two examples the fear of failure causes people to live in mediocrity, far below their true potential. Fear of failure stops people from ever beginning to work towards a goal, because they perceive the risk of failing is worse than the taste of success! Often these people have an attitude of “if works don’t fix it”.

Where Does The Fear Of Failure Emerge From?

Fear of failure usually results from a childhood experience, the stories you hear from family members, other people or films that you have seen which greatly embellish the real life consequences. All of this stimulus can introduce a fear into the mind, causing you to become more precautious and reserved than you normally would be. Characteristically this effect is continuing and develops over several years. However when a fear of failure does become evident, it tends to become a downward spiral, at which point the more fear you give into, the more apprehensive you become in life. The extreme of this would absorb someone who fears the outside world and does not leave their house. This is known as agoraphobia.

Overcoming The Fear Of Failure

A simple technique you can use to help overcome the fear of failure is to use something called Forward Positioning. I haven’t got time to discuss this here but I will cover it on future newsletters as this is an awesome technique for eradicating the Fear of Failure and Anxiety! Generally when people have a fear of failure it becomes habitual, consequently they give into fear without really thinking about it.

If you can identify this trait in yourself, you will be able to discover periods when you are persistently steer clear of doing something because of the fear you connect with it. Yet by persistently going ahead and doing the activity you fear, in time you will break that negative connection.

The key point here is that the more you give into fear, the more fear will be in command of and restrain your life. The easier you command fear, the less fear will command your life. The question remains do you command your fear or does your fear command you??

For further details please contact Andy Duncan at www.thefearmaster.com or tel 0845 643 2450