A really important thing is,” you learn more from your failures than you do your successes.” What this means is you really truly do have to make mistakes in order to learn and in order to grow. How do babies learn to walk? They crawl, they stand, they fall and tumble a million times before they take that first study step. This also applies to life.
I am scared of heights. I also love flying, especially hang gliding. TO train hang glider pilots we start them out on the flat and introduce them to gradually increasing heights, with particular attention to anytime the height is double their previous highest flight. With this technique I learned to fly hang gliders and control my fear of flying. Note, I was already a private pilot but still almost froze every time I flew a light plane. (Don’t tell the FAA.) I dropped out of college my junior year with a gpa of 1.65. 20 years later I returned to college while working full time and got a BS in a field not my field while carrying no less than 14 hours a semester and raised my gpa to 4.1 out of 5, including my previous scores. Before, I did not know how to study or to learn. I had to think about what I did wrong and then take more classes to develop new techniques that worked. This involved concentration and experimentation to achieve a desired result.
It is very difficult sometimes to overcome the fear of failure. I suffer with this myself greatly. Fear can hold a person back from many things in life. However to overcome, I believe you must provide encouragement and understanding. Patience is always helpful as well. And if its yourself, dig deep and look within. Force yourself to take a chance. Positive reinforcement is helpful too. Letting someone know its ok to take a risk, and give them the worst case scenario, and they can realize its not so bad.
The above story and insights are from a go-getter interested in improving their career and business ventures. This is part of the RichardStep Steppers plan to get more out of life! Now, let’s jump into some potential customer interviews and survey responses to see what people really think about this topic.
Overcoming The Fear Of Failure
Give a quick overview of what you think is the most important benefit of this whole subject.
Having a good understanding of overcoming the fear of failure is beneficial because it will allow people to do what they want without inhibitions. Many times what is best for us is something that is scary; if we overcome our fears, we can experience life to the fullest. Two summers ago I rode a bike across the country, and it was the best experience of my life. I was afraid before the trip that I would not succeed, but I tried anyways. Fear of failure is valid, but needs to be overcome.
This is very interesting stuff here and I think it could help people. What do you feel is the most life-altering thing about the topic?
If people realize that many fears are simply illusions made by their minds, MANY new doors will be opened and they can discover life in an way they never knew possible. While some fears, such as avoiding dark alleys, are biological and a result of evolution, many others are a result of conditioning through culture, media, and years of misinformation. Life is so much more enjoyable when you shed the latter group of fears.
Could this topic help regular people like me and you be better at what we do?
By understanding this topic, we can be sympathetic to those who suffer from a fear of failure, and we can help others around us. Once we have overcome our fears, we can do much more to help others. In this way, we can become what others need us to be.
If you had to put more time into bringing this topic into your daily life, what would you do?
I think that you should look up therapists online that deal with this kind of problem, maybe there is a reason you feel this way. I also would recommend looking up to see if there on any YouYube videos on the subject. It may also help to look into meditating. I know that this helps me a lot.
If someone wanted to learn more about this, what could they do?
I would think the best example of how someone could learn more about overcoming the fear of failure would be simply to try things that he or she is afraid to do and/or fail at. Fear can be crippling and sometimes not even trying seems like the safest way to go. Another way would be to talk to someone who overcame their own fear of failure, relating their experiences and showing that, in reality, there’s nothing to be afraid of, could help someone learn how to overcome their own fears and try to do something they are afraid to fail at. The only other thing I can think of to help overcoming fear of failure would be perhaps reading a book (self-help or a true life story) or watching a movie about someone overcoming fear of failure.
If you had to pick who’s the worst at this subject, who would it be?
Self Help sections at book stores always carry books regarding overcoming failure. You can read books on the topic and use the tips in everyday life. A person just starting out building their own business can be scared of being unsuccessful. They need coached to start out on the right foot and not let fear stop them from starting out. When someone loses a job, they can feel like they failed and don’t know how to get their career back on track. Addicts who have stayed sober and completed twelve step programs will struggle to stay clean.
What advice would you give someone looking into this topic?
I would tell a person who suffers from fear of failure that they cannot put their lives on hold because they are afraid. The only way you can succeed is if you take a risk and give something a try. I would tell them that almost everyone goes through this phase in their lives, and decide to take a chance even though they are afraid. It also gets easier to try new things once you have put yourself out their. Also, if you fail, the disappointment is usually much less embarrassing, etc. then we make it out to be in our minds.
What would you say is something we should avoid at all costs when it comes to this topic?
Failure should not be seen as an overall bad thing. Often the best way of learning is if we encounter failure, this shock encourages us to learn the material more thoroughly and makes what we do learn sticks with us much better. A good quote regarding failure is, “I didn’t fail 20 times, i learned 20 ways that don’t work” and i like to think of this whenever i encounter failure.
How could your experience with this topic help you be more successful?
I like to gradually expose myself to something that I’m afraid of. One example would be my fear of heights; I used to be very afraid of heights to the point that climbing a ladder made me week in the knees. I worked at a job that required me to climb a ladder quite regularly, and to start things off, I would slowly climb the ladder one leg at a time, take a deep breath, steady myself, climb another. It worked to slowly calm myself down and keep going. Eventually, I was able to climb the taller ladders swiftly and nimbly without any further fear.
What’s your most useful pearl of wisdom or advice for this topic?
1. The best way to help people overcome their fear of failure is to present them with examples of very successful people that have failed many times en route to their goal.2. To increase awareness towards overcoming the fear of failure one could reinforce effort rather than the end product. (“a” for effort example)
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