How to Overcome Fear of Failure with Action?

What is stopping you from taking action? It is Fear of Failure?

Fear of Failure is one of the fears that prevents us from taking action to change our lives for the better. Fear of Failure is the reason why so many people have trouble taking action to empower their life. And why do so many people feel that way? It's because they feel like they have to wait for the perfect remedy before they can take action.

Fear of failure convinces many people to not take action until they know the perfect remedy or the guaranteed fix. People with a fear of failure believe that if they take action without having the guaranteed fix, they could be opening themselves up for potential failure. Therefore, they start asking “What if I fail?” and they go back to waiting. Well guess what? That guarantee never comes and these individual's lives never improve.

You don’t want to be trapped by the fear-of-failure sort of thinking.

In our society there is such a bad stigma with the word “Failure.” It is almost like a filthy word. Nobody wants to hear, “Oh, he’s a failure,” or “She’s a failure,” or “I’m a failure.” All we ever want to hear is, “Here's the Winners!”

Well, here’s a truth about life that doesn’t get talked about a whole lot: No winners achieve their success without some failures along the way. Failure is part of the journey to becoming a winner. If you let yourself have a hang-up on a fear of failure, you’re never going to achieve success and reach the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

We need to change our mindset toward the word failure. Honestly, the way I see it, as long as we are not giving up, then any problems along the way are just set-backs. Failure is a conclusion—an end—therefore, nothing is a failure until it is over, and it is Not Over Until You Say So. We can survive as many set-backs as it takes.

An example of a healthy mindset would be to say: I’m going to take action with this new venture, or I'm going to take action and go after my goals, and I’m not going to be concerned about the possibility of having any set-backs; I’m just going to take action and give it my best; if I encounter a set-back, I will move forward and take the next action; I haven’t failed, it isn’t over; I am still in the running.

Perhaps the best remedy for a fear of failure is detachment—having the ability to detach yourself from the results. In other words, don’t judge or grade yourself every time you take an action toward success. Anything you attempt the first time may or may not be the right action. The point is, you’ve got to take that first action to get to the second action. Rather than judging yourself, perform logical assessments after each action or set-back. What did you lose? What didn’t you lose? Often times your logical assessment is a lot less devastating than what your emotions tells you. Armed with the knowledge of your assessment from the last action, you now can reposition yourself with the advantage of what you learned. Pick up where you left off, and take more action.

Let me ask you this, which is worse: waiting a lifetime for the perfect moment and the perfect action, or taking any moment and freeing yourself to take action?

You see, there is no point in fearing failure. The problems we run into when taking action are just set-backs, and set-backs are just stepping stones on our journey to success. With each stepping stone, you are closer to your goal. So go on and start taking action today, and no more fear.