Many people are afraid of failure. Are you among them?
Have you ever been so afraid of failing at something that you decided not to try it at all? I used to be. Actually, I was absolutely petrified of failure in one period of my life, and I allowed that fear to stop me from moving forward to achieve my goals.
But then I learned how to approach the matter in the way highly successful people do. By the way, have you noticed that highly successful people aren’t afraid of failing? So, what’s their secret? What makes them really embrace the idea of failure?
That is the topic we’re going to unpack in this episode of the Prosperity Approach podcast.
So tune in and learn more about the perspective and the meaning highly successful people give failure, and how to use the same principle to overcome the fear and stop missing great opportunities in life.
Let’s dive in!
See, I Told You So!
Let me tell you a story that I heard from a good friend of mine. When her son was learning to ride a bike, she found him outside crying one day. The bike was on the ground.
“Robbie, what’s wrong? Did you fall off your bike?”
“No, I’m just thinking about falling off my bike.”
Awww, it’s so cute, isn’t it!?
The very idea of falling off scared him so much that he didn’t even get on his bike. But Robbie was five or six then, so it was endearing. But when we’re 35 or 45 and refuse to do something because we’re afraid of failing – that’s an entirely different story.
So, what is it about failing that fills people with so much fear that they won’t even dare to attempt something? Years of experience and thousands of women I’ve worked with show me that it boils down to the meaning someone gives to failure.
And almost always, I get the same answers:
- It means I’m not enough.
- It means I’m not lovable.
- It means nobody will help me.
- It means I’ll be all alone.
Actually, about 98% of people give failure this meaning. “So, why even try when I’m not good enough? And not only that – I’ll be embarrassed, humiliated, exposed, and hurt…”
This mindset that stops most people in their tracks used to fill me with fear as well. For a very long time, that’s what failure meant to me.
You know what’s the worst about this perspective on failure?! We don’t expect to succeed. Instead, we’re bracing ourselves for the failure, and when we experience it, we’re like, “See, I told you!”
Enoughness Is Never on the Table
Now, what makes highly successful people different from the masses? Are they better? Are they more talented? Has God poured out His favor more on them than anybody else? The answer to all these questions is NO.
Then what is it?
Well, I think I already answered this when I said that 98% of people saw failure as proof that they’re not good enough. So, it’s all about perspective! Highly successful people have a different perspective from the masses, particularly about failure and risk.
They operate under a completely different set of beliefs, and that’s what sets them apart and helps them to embrace failure.
Also, successful people make different decisions from the masses – not to do something, but about something. So they’ve decided to give failure a different meaning. For them, it means that there’s room for improvement.
First of all, highly successful people expect success with brand new things that they’ve tried. But if they don’t get that level of success, it doesn’t mean that no part of the plan worked. The fact that they tried and figured out what parts of their plan worked and what didn’t is so precious.
The failure gives them accurate information on what they need to keep/ weak/kick to be more successful and get the desired results in the next attempt. Or maybe that the strategy is not worth trying anymore.
But what highly successful people never do is question their worth or enoughness. Their value is never on the table!
It’s Just Feedback
Successful people will take bigger and bigger risks because of the way that they’ve decided life works for them and because they see failure as feedback. You can be as much powerful – you just need to make that decision, as well.
The more you look at failure as nothing more than feedback about how you can grow and improve or how you have even more fun and joy along the way, the less concerned you’ll be with the level of success.
When I learned and started applying this, it was amazing – because it worked!
And one of the things that helped me get out of the do-or-die and this-must-work strategy was my decision to use things as an experiment. Like, “I don’t know. I’ve never tried this before – let’s see how it unfolds.”
If you’re in business, any strategy you use is nothing more than an experiment. So stop putting yourself under any kind of pressure, try something you’ve planned, and just see what happens.
The best part about experiments? They never set you back to square one because you got knowledge from experience – called wisdom. Now you know what did (not) work and it’s enormously powerful and helpful in what you want to create.
As you let go of the fear of failure and start embracing it for feedback, it’ll bring you greater joy and growth, expansion and creativity, connections, and money. You’ll literally fail your way to success!
Let’s Try It and See!
You’ll still fail more often than you’ll succeed and that’s OK. But your successes will start being bigger than your failures. As Napoleon Hill said, failure is nothing more than a temporary experience.
So, play with it. When you’re doing something new, just say, “I don’t know. Let’s just try it and see” instead of “I’m gonna knock this thing out of the park the first time I do it!”. Don’t put unnecessary pressure on yourself thinking that way.
I tell my team and my family this all the time, even if we’ve set a seemingly impossible goal. Let’s see how close we can get! Maybe we’ll overshoot it. Or way undershoot it. We haven’t done it yet. Let’s try it and see!
Just be willing. Successful people say, “Yes, I’m willing!” when the opportunity to grow presents itself. And it happens every single day!
If you want to learn more things that will help you to embrace failure and embrace growth, pick up our free Prosperity Guide.
It contains fantastic techniques, experiments, and exercises that you can do to let go of doubt, overwhelm and fear. They can connect you with success without struggle and help you grow and fail in safe and super fun ways!
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