Fear of Failure

Domain: Personal Development - Estimated reading time: 4 minutes

Over the course of the last month, we've covered a number of different strategies to help with planning your 2025 goals. We've discussed the advantages of starting the process early, selecting goals for long-term fulfillment and the art of balancing both short-and long-term goals.

In this final installment of the series, we are going to cover one of the biggest challenges that people experience towards achieving their goals. It's also one that we least like to talk about and admit.

The fear of failure.

We often allow the possibility of failure to prevent us from seriously going after the same things that we are wanting to do in the first place. We do this because the potential failure threatens our feelings of self-worth, confidence and security. This is especially true if there is the potential for others to observe or know-of the failure in question.

In this mental state, it feels safer not to pursuit something as opposed to pursuing it, still not getting it, and taking the hit to our self-esteem in the process.

Of course, most of us know that by not pursuing our goals we are guaranteeing we won't achieve them. We also invite the risk of regret later down the line. In fact, not living life true to one's self is often cited as the biggest regret of the dying.

Today, we are going to acknowledge that fear of failure is a normal thing and recommend some strategies for overcoming it…

Acknowledge it

That's the first step. Easy in theory and difficult in practice.

Start by pausing and asking yourself why you've been procrastinating on that big goal or dream of yours. Is there a part of you that is afraid to try and still fail? You may find it helpful to explore where that fear comes from, but be careful not to dwell on it so much that it furthers your paralysis.

Once you acknowledge and name it, the following strategies become easier.

The next right thing

Breaking your goals down into manageable and actionable steps can help to lessen the fear of failure. That's because small actions are more attainable and don't carry the same high-stakes as failure on the overall goal.

What's the next right thing you need to focus on in order to make progress on your larger goal? Focus on that for now and once it's done, identify the new "next right thing" and repeat the process.

Progress over perfection

In order to lessen our chances of failure, we often look towards perfectionism. The problem is that we allow said perfectionism to prevent us from taking definitive action. For instance, insisting that more work is needed on a product before it is released…resulting in either a delayed or even failed roll-out.

Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

Certainly we still want to do high-quality work…but not at the cost of progress or momentum. Give yourself a pre-determined amount of time to complete the "next right thing" in front of you…and then deliver it. When you repeat that enough, you'll get greater results with more efficiency.

Learning is part of it

Unfortunately, none of this guidance guarantees that you won't fail. There's always the chance for failure. It's part of life. Especially a big, ambitious and fulfilling life.

Even if you fail at your large goal, you've likely learned a lot along the way. You've learned more about the thing you were trying to achieve but also about yourself. We can sometimes get so focused on achieving a goal that we lose sight of the valuable things we learn along the way.

If we fail this time…we'll take what we've learned, try again and have a better chance at success the next time. Even if we decide to try something different, we've likely learned things during the course of the most recent "failure" that can be applied to the next endeavor.

Catch your mindset

Watch how you talk to yourself. If you find yourself in negative self-talk and absolutes then you've found yourself in a fixed mindset. These statements sound like "I can't do…", "I'll never be able to…", "I'm not smart enough to…".

Fixed vs. growth mindsets is a whole other topic for another day. For the purposes of today's topic, we just want to catch ourselves when we're in negative self-talk and then rationally reframe the thinking into something more productive.

Don’t overdo it

I love ambitious goals. Both in the scope of a goal and in the number of goals I set myself. However, this can be counter-productive if fear of failure is a common obstacle for you. If that's the case, consider focusing on a fewer number of really important goals and then put your full self into it.

Thank you for reading. My hope is always that you've found something helpful and easy to implement.

This week’s action items:

1. Check-in with yourself to determine whether your procrastination is coming from a fear of failure. Acknowledge it if it is.

2. What's the next thing you need to do to make progress towards that goal? Schedule it on this week's calendar.

3. Instead of aiming for perfection, start to track the pace of your progress towards your goals.

4. Identify what you've learned from both your successes and failures so far. How can you apply those learnings going forward?

5. If fear of failure is a big challenge for you, try focusing on a fewer number of really important goals.