The Surprising Ways Fear of Failure Can Manifest
Photo courtesy of Gerd Altmann from Pixabay
“I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.”
— Thomas Edison
Throughout my life, both personally and professionally I’ve met countless people who have a fear of failure. Many of them had never even considered the roots of certain thoughts and behaviours until the subject came up. And there it was, smacking them in the face.
I’m not talking about that little bit of “wanting to do well” or “not wanting to fail an exam.” I’m talking about a fear of failure that creates problems, destroys happiness, and trashes well-being. The kind that drives people to work far too hard and too much. The kind that stresses students to the point of adversely affecting them, pressuring them about grades or trying not to make mistakes.
It’s the kind that compels people to be perfectionists, which doesn’t have to show up in every area of their lives either, but it will be there somewhere. Perhaps only in schoolwork or career. Perhaps only in the way they keep their homes, their rooms, their drawers and cupboards, their collections of CDs, their rows of shoes.
For these people, making a mistake is almost a fate worse than death. They feel deeply ashamed and stupid. They can’t stand to disappoint anyone by producing a less-than-perfect result in anything they do.
It’s the kind of fear that makes people be competitive and drives them to be the best, to beat “the other guy” at everything they attempt to do. Terribly demanding of themselves, they expect to get the best marks in the class, the best job performance evaluation, the best praise from parents, partners, friends, volunteer organisations — they need to be “the best”, the winners, the ones who accomplished the most. To be less than the best is unacceptable; the pressure must be unbearable after a while.
It’s the kind that makes people fear failure to such an extent that they dare not even attempt to succeed. They feel as though there is no way that they could cope with getting it wrong, not reaching the goal, not being successful — whatever that means specifically. Afraid they’ll make a mistake or they won’t be the best or get it 100% right, they don’t even bother to try. If they aren’t absolutely certain that they can do it exactly right and be perfect, they won’t do it at all.
And so, we end up with wasted brilliance, wasted lives, wasted opportunities, wasted creativity. There might have been miracles in the making. But we will never know.
What is it that could make people feel this way? What could possibly be behind such a debilitating fear?
It is another fear, an even bigger one. It is the fear of not being loved, or the fear of being rejected, being abandoned — all of which are tied up in one
another. Somewhere deep inside, there will be an issue like this, a deeply-rooted fear which then leads to the fear of failure and its resultant behaviours.
“If I could just be perfect, or be the best, then I would be good enough — then I would be loved and I would not be rejected or abandoned.” These are the secret thoughts that torment the perfectionist.
The problem is, you can never be perfect. It does not exist; it is an unattainable goal so as soon as you aim for it, you’ve shot yourself in the foot.
And although you may be the best at some things sometimes, you will never be the best at everything all the time. And therefore, this expectation sets you set up for failure, too.
So what can you do about this?
Examine why you feel that fear of failure. What is it that needs healing? Are there rejection and abandonment issues that you can identify? They don’t have to be physical abandonment issues either. For example, it may have been that a parent was emotionally unavailable to you, even if you were in the same house.
There could be a million reasons for it so I cannot speculate about all of them here. The point is to look at the fear of failure. Dig deep and see where it begins. Then find ways to heal the wounds that are causing it, through affirmations, self- help books, surrounding yourself with loving people, through journal-writing, spiritual guidance, meditation or any other way that will help you.
You can give up the fight to be perfect or to be the best. You can turf your fear of failure because you’re already just as good, just as perfect as everyone else on the planet. On a human level, all of us mess up, all of us make mistakes.
Granted, some of us make a lot more than others, but so what? As I’ve said on numerous occasions before this one, behind human behaviour, its foibles and flaws, there is always a perfect spirit. It resides within us and it guides and directs us — when we let it.
When we get caught up in human foolishness like greed, jealousy, envy, dishonesty, or something really silly like believing we’re undeserving of love, that’s when we run into trouble. We must remember that we will always have all the love we could ever want, as long as we accept ourselves and love ourselves first.
If you don’t think you’re lovable, you will never feel the love that is given to you.
You will reject is because if you think you are not lovable, you would not believe that anyone really loves you; therefore you will not feel it, no matter how many times someone says “I love you” and no matter how much love you are shown. You will be like a bottomless pit of need and emptiness, aching for someone to fix it, for someone to love you. But even when they do, you don’t believe you deserve it…and so you don’t feel it…I’m sure you can see the chicken-and-egg problem with this.
We are all deserving of love. We are always loved by someone, and usually by many “someones.” Depending on your spiritual beliefs, there is Universal love from a Divine Source available to all of us, flowing through us and around us all the time. We can choose to feel that love, which is pure and unconditional, and let it heal those human wounds of rejection, abandonment and unworthiness. We can let it heal that human need to be perfect, to be the best, and accept ourselves as being perfectly imperfect, as humans should be.
When you can reach that point, you can love yourself unconditionally, which will allow you to move forward in your life, taking risks, trying and failing, trying and succeeding. A whole new world will open up to you once you understand that you are still lovable and still as perfect as a human can be, remembering that mistakes are inevitable. There is no shame in making them. And besides, they are better seen as opportunities to learn and should be welcomed.
I am reminded of the bridge in “Broken,” a song I co-wrote and recorded with Dave Moffatt. The lyrics started coming to me while I was out driving one day. It’s a conversation with God/Source/the Universe (pick your word). I couldn’t get home fast enough to write them down.
Then in my darkest hour, there came a whisper clear,
Have faith and know that I love you, know that I’m always here,
In every way, you’re perfect exactly as you are,
Divinely flawed and flawless, a brilliant, shining star.
If you won’t risk failing, then you don’t try at all. That’s called “giving up” — and isn’t that the true definition of failing? If you don’t even allow yourself the opportunity to try, you show no belief in yourself. And it makes it harder for anyone else to believe in you.
You’ve basically abandoned yourself in the worst way.
I prefer to think of the “tried and it didn’t work” situations as not having got the outcome I expected or hoped for, rather than as “failure.”
However you look at it and whatever you choose to call it, risking failure is the only way you will ever find success.
Spiritual Arts Mentor and Master Teacher, Liberty Forrest, guides you in discovering who you are, why you’re here, and how to follow that path.
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