Are We Scared to Fail?

Are we scared to fail? Do we stop ourselves from trying something just in case we fail? Do we project failure, seeing ourselves fail at something before we have even tried it?

No matter how hard you work for success, if your thought is saturated with the fear of failure, it will kill your efforts, neutralize your endeavours and make success impossible. Baudjuin

The more I work with different clients the more I see a growing pattern of fear. Society is teaching us from a young age that to fail is wrong. Our school days carry the fear of the big F being put on our papers for all to see, F for FAILURE. But is failure a necessary step for learning to occur? Are we stopping ourselves from achieving things due to the small chance that we may fail? If we never fail at something does it mean that we never learnt anything from it?

Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently. Henry Ford

Some of the biggest discoveries were born from mistakes/failure. One of the most famous ones in medicine is the discovery of penicillin. In 1928, bacteriologist Alexander Fleming made a chance discovery from a discarded, contaminated Petri dish. The mould that had contaminated the experiment turned out to contain a powerful antibiotic, penicillin.

Even a mistake may turn out to be the one thing necessary to a worthwhile achievement. Henry Ford

One of the biggest lessons we can learn in life is it is ok to fail at something, to let go of the fear of failure. You may not learn the lesson the first time or even the second and third time, but each time we fail at something we learn something. We learn a different way to succeed, maybe even discover a new path altogether. Everything we learn we can use later in life for the next task we tackle.

No-one starts off by being the best at something, all the greats did it through hard work and being brave enough to try something and fail. Even ourselves; we came into this world being able to do nothing for ourselves. Slowly we learnt how to walk and talk and eventually we became fully independent people. If we had the same fear of trying new things as a baby that we do as adults we would still be in nappies.

So many of the great names today could have given up at the many hurdles they faced but instead they kept trying and failing until the found the right way.

Winston Churchill failed sixth grade. He was subsequently defeated in every election for public office until he became Prime Minister at the age of 62. He later wrote, "Never give in, never give in, never, never, never, never - in nothing, great or small, large or petty - never give in except to convictions of honor and good sense. Never, Never, Never,Never give up."

Sigmund Freud was booed from the podium when he first presented his ideas to the scientific community of Europe. He returned to his office and kept on writing.

Albert Einstein did not speak until he was four years old and did not read until he was 7. His parents thought he was"sub-normal," and one of his teachers described him as "mentally slow, unsociable, and adrift forever in foolish dreams." He was expelled from school and was refused admittance to the Zurich Polytechnic School.
Henry Ford failed and went broke five times before he succeeded.

Michael Jordan and Bob Cousy were each cut from their high school basketball teams. Jordan once observed,"I've failed over and over again in my life. That is why I succeed."

Walt Disney was fired by a newspaper editor because "he lacked imagination and had no good ideas." He went bankrupt several times before he built Disneyland. In fact, the proposed park was rejected by the city of Anaheim on the grounds that it would only attract riffraff.

The Beatles. Decca Records turned down a recording contract with the Beatles with the unprophetic evaluation, "We don't like their sound, and guitar music is on their way out." After Decca rejected the Beatles, Columbia records followed suit.

Elvis Presley. In 1954, Jimmy Denny, manager of the Grand Ole Opry, fired Elvis Presley after one performance. He told Presley, "You ain't goin' nowhere, son. You ought to go back todrivin' a truck."

One of the greatest discoveries a man makes, one of his great surprises, is to find he can do what he was afraid he couldn't do. Henry Ford

Let go of the fear of failure and trust in your abilities. Calculate the risk sand make wise decisions, but take the plunge. Whilst we may end up on a different road than we expected, if we never try then we will never succeed. Yes we may need to “fail” once or twice to discover the right path but far better to try, and fail, than spend your whole life wondering "what if."

To find out how hypnotherapy, CBT& NLP can help you to let go of your fears and achieve your goals please give Erika a call for a no obligation chat.