......You And The Fear Of Failure

Fear kills more dreams than failure ever will

Fear is easily defined as a strong uncontrollable, unpleasant emotion caused by actual or perceived danger or threat. Another name for fear is phobia and we all have our different fears in life. I'll be talking about the one most common fear that prevents people from achieving their goals and living their dreams, it is called the fear of failure (Atychiphobia).
    Firstly, let's look at a deep meaning of the word "failure" because we've already defined fear. I'll give you two different meanings of failure:
1) Failure is a state or condition of not meeting a desirable or intended objective or it's simply the opposite of success.
2) Failure is the termination of the ability of an item to perform its required function or it's simply a breakdown.
   Since we already know what fear is, we can easily say that the fear of failure is the fear of terminating the ability of an item to perform its required function. Let's create a similar meaning that'll pertain to success, "Fear of failure is the fear of terminating the ability of achieving one's goals".

Causes of fear of failure:

The fear of failure has eaten many success stories of youths and adults. Below are some of the causes of fear of failure;

1) Unsupportive Background; A lot of people have the fear of failure built in them. Sometimes it starts from our childhood when our parents scare the courage out of us. Parents, guardians, and friends are sometimes the ones behind your fears,

Unsupportive Background

for each time they're told about the present goal and its possibilities, they  pop-up their normal discouraging question "what if you fail?". Because of this, many grow from childhood to adulthood over-questioning the possibility of their success (even when their previous background is long gone).
2) Lack of Self-confidence; Cases like that of unsupportive background brings in lack of self-confidence. As we may know, self-confidence simply means believing in one's ability and loss of self-confidence also leads to fear of failure.

Lack of self-confidence

Cases like that of unsupportive background brings in loss of self-confidence, not just unsupportive background because there are other ways people lose their self-confidence. Losing the believe you have for your strength makes you think that you are weak as it also makes you grow fear of failure.
3) Past Failure; some people who tried achieving their goals and failed woefully barely forget those failures.

Past failures

This weighs them down as some of them finds themselves unfit for anything. Even in the next decades coming, they can't forget those failures (and this kills their self-confidence).

   As we know, prevention is better than cure, let's look at the ways to prevent fear of failure before we move to its cure.

Ways to prevent the fear of failure:

   1)Staying active; one of the ways to prevent the fear of failure is staying active. No one stands on the railway when he/she sees a huge train at a high-speed. Be as active as a train, slowing down will attract a lot that you don't want. Be focused on your destination and don't compare yourself with those who are failing. You can check this later "Staying active makes you chew your goals".
   2)Imagine the future you want; another way to prevent the fear of failure is to imagine what it'll look like when you succeed in what you're doing. Imagining the future I want is one of the ways I've always inspired myself to Never Give Up!!
    3) Making Friends with Successful People; here's another good way to prevent yourself from the fear of failure, making friends with successful people dose not only help you prevent the fear of failure but also inspires you through your success. Birds of the same feathers flock together, when you start hanging around with successful people, you start becoming successful because they will definitely possess you with a successful mindset.
   4) Creating a Proper Goal list; if you were told to jump up from the 1st staircase to the 7th staircase of a building, you'd probably be afraid of failing because the distance is too much. Creating a proper goal list is important, a goal list that'll contain all your goals starting from the easiest to the most difficult because when you achieve the easier ones, it gives you courage to go in for the next step. This is also a great way to grow your self-confidence.

    Symptoms of the Fear of Failure:

1) Procrastination

2) Unwillingness to create new goals

3) Failure to flow through your goals

4) Excessive anxiety

5) Doing only the things that you know you can accomplish perfectly.

Once you find out any of the symptoms of the fear of failure in you, try using these methods to kill that fear:

1) Kill procrastination

2) Always have a plan B 

3) Make friends with successful people

4) Believe in Yourself

5) Be positive about Success.

The methods of preventing the fear of failure are similar to that of killing the fear of failure.

Quotes for the Fear Of Failure:

1. “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” — Thomas Edison

2. “Success is the ability to go from failure to failure without losing your enthusiasm.” — Winston Churchill

3. “Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly.” — Robert F. Kennedy

4. “Failure is only the opportunity to begin again, only this time more wisely.” — Henry Ford

5. “Our greatest glory is not in never failing, but in rising every time we fail.” — Confucious

6. “There is no such thing as failure. Failure is just life trying to move us in another direction.” — Oprah

7. “I’ve come to believe that all my past failure and frustrations were actually laying the foundation for the understandings that have created the new level of living I now enjoy.” — Tony Robbins

8. “I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.” — Michael Jordan

9. “It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all – in which case, you fail by default.” ― J.K. Rowling

10. “There is only one thing that makes a dream impossible to achieve: the fear of failure.” ― Paulo Coelho
More??.....Click here for MORE