How To Overcome The Fear Of Failure: 7 Practical Tips
It is natural to experience fear in certain situations; Contrary to what many people believe, fear does not represent weakness. Instead, fear functions as a way to preserve our species, ensuring that we avoid exposing ourselves to dangerous situations.
But paradoxically, fear can turn against us. When our fears are irrational, that is, they do not respond to situations that are truly dangerous for us, they become limiting fears. In this article Let’s see how to overcome the fear of failure through various tips.
The fear of failure can respond to multiple circumstances. It is an irrational fear of a multifactorial nature. Among the most frequent circumstances we have low self-esteem, poor management of expectations, dependence on others to carry out almost any activity, etc.
These kinds of behaviors and thoughts are mainly those that derive from poorly founded fears to know how to overcome the fear of failure we must first be able to recognize any of these cognitive distortions in ourselves.
How to overcome the fear of failure?
In the next few lines we will review some effective techniques that can greatly help in overcoming the irrational fear of failure. Let’s see what they are.
Recognition of one’s own emotions is essential to face the fear of failure. When we are able to recognize that we are feeling afraid we can deal with it in a much more effective way than when we refuse to accept it.
Thus, overcoming the fear of failure begins by being able to analyze the situation from which we start and explore those sources of fear, what makes a project make us fear or make us feel anguish.
2. Identify the exact focus of fear
Feeling that we are afraid of failure is something that is quite general, what we must do in these cases is identify what exactly motivates our fear, What exact part of the process is the one that generates anxiety and anguish?.
Once you can pinpoint the real reason for your fears, you will know what aspects need to be improved to overcome them. It is about analyzing from the most general to the most specific to find our Achilles heel, he who knows his fears becomes stronger.
3. Motivation techniques
Sometimes the fear of failure can be subject to a general lack of motivation. In these scenarios, what we must do is strengthen our motivation and help maintain it over time. There are various personal motivation techniques that can help you solve your fears.
It is important to keep in mind that motivation can be internal or external; When it is internal, it is because we enjoy the process of doing something we like, while when it is an external motivation, what drives us to meet our objectives is the concrete and objective reward that we will receive for it.
When we think that failure will follow us everywhere, and there is nothing we can highlight, we must stop for a moment and carefully analyze our situation. Ask yourself: do these thoughts make sense? What is really stopping me from achieving success?
When you realize that the main obstacle between you and success is your own thoughts, you will have made progress on your path to overcoming the fear of making mistakes. Success is relative, think of it as something everyday. Every day you succeed at something. If you see failure as a learning opportunity for future success, you will take advantage of it.
5. Plan realistic goals
Realistic goals keep us away from the probability of resounding failure, to the extent that we plan our goals more assertively. we will begin to see our success more attainable and consequently we will dispel the fear of failure.
We must make a habit of this so that little by little it becomes a habit, and we completely lose the irrational fear of failing in our aspirations. Evaluate the resources you have available and works based on them.
This is one of the easiest tips on how to overcome the fear of failure to follow, since it is based on easy-to-determine actions, such as establishing a calendar, dividing general objectives into more specific ones, etc. If, on the other hand, we set unrealizable goals, we will end up getting frustrated and assuming the idea that nothing is going well for us, which in the long run paralyzes us and leads to passivity and defeatism. A balance must be sought between the present state and what can be achieved with the means available now.
This point refers to gradually surpassing what has been achieved. When we start an activity it is normal that we are not so good at the beginning, but eventually we will improve as time passes and we are constant. So, take each advance as a personal triumph.
Always try to improve yourself without obsessing about it. Remember that all excesses are negative, and Too much self-demand could lead to high levels of frustration that are counterproductive for our cause.
7. Don’t run away from the possibility of failure
As you begin to think of failure as just another possibility, without necessarily being something catastrophic, the fear of it will begin to dissipate.
The less you try to avoid failure and the more you focus on the process of doing what you set out to do and enjoying it, the better things will be for your performance, and your fear will disappear, replaced by a more adaptive way of viewing failure.
