Regaining altitude when facing the fear of failure

Fear of failure has been one of the self-sabotaging features influencing my life for, well probably a long long time. It has often delicately maneuvered the event, actions, and responses I’ve taken. Always maintaining a very subtle control if not intensively playing out on the surface of my mind — utilizing waves of nearly paralyzing fear crashing after each other as its fuel. Yet there is a way out of it.

It is easy to recognize now how that fear of failure has been built as an integral part of my ego-structure from very early on. I remember that as a youngling I have been blessed in many ways, one of them being relatively talented and so capable of pulling off nearly everything I attempted to do. Despite this, I’ve been paradoxically also someone suffering from a fundamentally low self-worth. I’ve had been kept up by the constant flow of encouragements and compliments from people around me. This made me also highly dependent on them on my well-being and thus craving the positive adjectives feeding my ego (later it turned to its other manifestation as denying all the positive feedback given to me, even if fully honest). I often did my best to uphold a near perfectionist image that could always measure up for the vocalized appreciation that turned into expectations through the distortions of my mind.

Being so tied into what others said about me, this self-image naturally became much more important than how, or what I really was.

It was not only preventing a genuine self-development and improvement of those skills that might have been lacking, but also instilled a tendency to avoid any situation or taking such an initiative that had the perceived potential to render visible the very fact that I was simply not perfect as measured by the expectations I had created for myself and projected to others.

“There is only one thing that makes a dream impossible to achieve: the fear of failure.” -Paulo Coelho

The price paid for the sustenance of this fear of failure has been heavy, and it always is with fear. For with fear we go against the everliving current of life. The same life we are integrally part of each and every one. Just like with every other discomfort or annoyance in our lives, we have a tendency to tolerate and put up with it, avoid facing it, before it grows too intense.Before we see the actual price we pay for it, without a possibility of denial and self-deception.

May it be our fears and other unhealthy tendencies, a state of collective traumatization leading to random violence in our cities, or even a small and simple thing as having the garbage full and smelly in our kitchen.

Procrastination and avoidance seem often more tempting than facing the fact and doing something about it. Perhaps the avoidance gives a continuity to a perception of business as usual, of a status quo felt safe?

Fear of failure, as with possibly every other type of fear, is always related to our psychological self-image. It is our conceptual image that is being threatened by a possibility of failure more than anything. One form of belief being threatened by another belief. It plays part not only in the conflicts within us but also between us in the world.

Death is a renewal, a mutation, in which thought does not function at all because thought is old. When there is death there is something totally new. Freedom from the known is death, and then you are living. 
-Jiddu Krishnamurti

As the validity and existence of this self-image are being questioned and threatened, it utilizes our often inherent avoidance and fear of dying in servitude of its own survival. Making us believe in that the death of this self-image equals to the total annihilation of ourselves.

This, of course, is true only in a sense that it is our limitations dearly held through the gravity of identification that is perishing. It may become visible when we are willing and capable to shift our position from the dance this fear aims to interlock us.

The key is to find altitude

To ability to shift the focus in the moment of doubtful thoughts and their fear induced felt-sense counterparts is grounded in surrender and awareness.

Three points have proven to be beneficial in my own life as an ability to engage in dancing with this part of the ego-structure in a way that it is not the one leading the steps.

1. Always finding a vision and shifting focus towards a deeper meaning in life, something that is larger than the importance of my self-image. Focusing on doing things for their own sake and for the sake of others helps to transform even a potential failure into a visible learning experience for others. Perhaps by seeing me failing and rising up they are able to accept and be released from the same fear towards it in their own life? Perhaps perceiving me failing helps them succeed in a way that affects the lives of many positively? Makes us all more resilient? This interrupts the self-centered whirlpool of consciousness that may otherwise develop and shifts my attention outward to others through surrender and willingness to let go.
2. Willingness to honestly engage oneself and the current experience. This includes the acceptance of the thought-emotion present as well as the inability to do anything about it that does not strengthen it. The reduction of mental resistance and tension which are a result of this honesty and acceptance make it possible for me to fully feel and follow my felt sense and emotions to discover the deeper layers and causes for my experience. Fully feeling reduces the fuel available to thoughts that are difficult to face and adds it to the energy reserves at my disposal for attentiveness. Therefore the thoughts do not seem overwhelming and overly significant.
3. Gratitude and giving thanks. Ultmately it comes to this. The recognition of the ultimate authority of the Higher power, God, Yeshua, in the way it is authentic to you. Along with this comes the willingness to surrender and trust in the inherent goodness of the Creator of all despite the experience that may be present at that moment in our lives. This again is not merely a mental act, but a shift towards a devotional position of the heart, a silent prayer, in which surrender and inclusive presence to one’s experience are crucial internal attributes. It is relieving to remember again how a single failure or success in my life is infinitely small in the perspective of the whole universe, and how most — if not all of the perceived failures in my life have eventually turned into something good!

What these three points also emphasize, are authenticity, honesty, clarity, and transparency. Four traits that are values in themselves, and not a matter of perspective or limited conditions as a success or failure so frequently are. Something more fundamental, steady, and true, than an opinion or a narrative — and also surely part of that what is gaining a growing foothold globally. In doing as well as in the recognition of their importance.

So embrace those “failures”, be open and willing to see the hidden value they often embody, and let it transform you into someone more genuine.

Be and do to the benefit of another, of the common that is shared, and just for the sake of showing gratitude towards the One that gives you one more privileged day when you wake up with a heart steadily beating within your chest!