Everybody at some point in their life has feared failure. Feared the outcome that might come to be whether you do or don’t do something. Feared rejection or shame, feared whether you’re smart enough or capable enough to do something you’ve never tried before. We’ve all been there and we’ve all experienced it before. Don’t for a second think that only you fear failure, because a lot of people do and a lot of people also endure failure every day.
But why is it that people fear failure? Perhaps a reason as to why people fear failure is because if you went to school, from an early age you and everybody else learned that getting the correct answer the first time is the only time you’ll ever really be rewarded or praised. Getting the wrong answer will often either make you look like an idiot or on an exam or paper get you a low grade. Everybody hates failing, so much that sometimes, some people would rather stay in the dark regarding an answer to a question they have than to ask it because they’re afraid of the repercussions of failure.
As you grow older and start attending college or working out in the great big wide world, failing doesn’t seem to be frowned upon so much as it once was. Perhaps it’s because you finally realize that everybody is prone to making mistakes and failing and that nobody is perfect. Perhaps you also realize that you learn more and faster by failing and that nobody around you actually cares if you fail because they fail all the time too. Personally, as an individual who once upon a time also feared failure and to this day sometimes forgets that failing and making mistakes isn’t a big deal, I wish that growing up I had better understood the concept which is that failing is only natural.
“Fail fast, fail often.” You may have once heard this familiar saying, a message that means to tell you that it’s okay to fail because you’ll learn from your mistakes and won’t make them again. I like this quote because of just how right it is… don’t be afraid of failure, embrace it. Learn from your mistakes and move forward fearlessly.
The message I wanted to convey through this article was a message primarily for those of you who either once feared failing or to this day still do. Overcoming the fear of failure, similarly to overcoming the fear of anything for that matter, isn’t easy. However, try and remember that we all fail and that nobody is perfect. Although we may not all fear failure, we have all at some point in our lives failed and although failing again is inevitable, next time you make a mistake - rejoice at the fact that you’re only human.
