Stephen Hawking has been quoted saying: "Next time someone complains that you have made a mistake, tell him that may be a good thing. Because without imperfection, neither you nor I would exist".
The fear of failure is one of the most common fears among people today. According to the Self Help Collective, it is actually the 7th most common fear (with the Latin name "Kakorrhaphio-phobia"). It's very common for people to be living with this fear at the everyday level- fear of trouble in our daily routines, fear of things going wrong at work, school, while running errands. It's human nature to be aware of the things that could go wrong in life, it comes with the natural fight or flight instinct. It would be naive to expect that we can live life without fear of mistakes and failure— but we can definitely learn how to navigate the pitfalls in order to better thrive in the high points of our lives.
There are many different ways to cope with fear that comes with failure and making mistakes. One of the most important and immediate steps to take is to separate yourself from the failure. Unfortunately, we tend to merge our identities with our mistakes. While it is good to learn from these experiences and to grow in spite of our mistakes, merging our view of ourselves with the things that we have done wrong will only make it harder to climb out of the emotional valleys that result. We are only human, we are bound to make mistakes. The first thing we can do when these mistakes happen is to understand that, well, they're going to happen. Sometimes there's nothing we can do to prevent it, so we may as well embrace it.
A lot of times, messing up is vital to succeeding. How can we learn what is right without first knowing what is wrong? Almost every skill that we acquire has come from not being able to succeed in that skill. We stumble before we take our first steps, and then even more after. We fall off our bike before we learn how to ride with two wheels. In baseball, we strikeout before we learn how to hit the curve. We fall and we fall and we fall, but the great thing about it is that we can always get back up. In a way, that's the great thing about failing: it just gives us another opportunity to succeed.
Sometimes the fear of failing keeps us from even trying to succeed. But what kind of life is that to live? Without risk, there would be no reward, and a life without valleys would mean that there are no mountaintops on which to celebrate and enjoy life. Embrace the pitfalls and relish in the light of the top, for we could not know true success unless we've experienced the hardships it took to get there.
You are more than the mistakes, the failures, and the pitfalls. At the end of the day it's how you emerge from these experiences that make you the person you're meant to be.
“Failures are finger posts on the road to achievement.”
C. S. Lewis
