8 Ways to Overcome the Fear of Failure and Pursue Your Dreams
It’s been shown that one of the major causes of failures is fear of failure. Those torturous thoughts that take hold of the mind and fill us with anxiety each time we think of making a move to pursue our dreams.
Such is the power of fear. It cripples and stifles. And as long as you allow it to rule you, you will never achieve your dreams.
Thankfully, that is not the end of the narrative. There are very potent ways by which you can overcome the fear of failure and pursue the life you have always dreamt of. By leveraging these key steps, you will liberate your mind, take your life to a new height and ultimately achieve even your widest dream.
1. Establish Short-Term Goals and Pursue to Achieve Them
It is easy to get crippled by the fear of failure if your thoughts are always focused on the big dream you desire to achieve. When you think of all the resources you need and the work that needs to go into making the dream happen, it is natural that you will get intimidated. But what if you break the dream into short term goals to pursue, one after the other? The truth is that Rome was not built in a day. Your dream will not become a reality in one fell swoop. No, it’s not going to happen that way. You will have to achieve it one bit at a time. So break your dream into short-term goals and take them on one after the other.
2. Take Small Steps Toward Your Goals Daily
One way to deal with the fear of failure head-on is to take small steps daily towards achieving your short-term goals. Take action every day, no matter how small. This could mean something as littles as spending 30 minutes or one hour to research or read a book. Or it could mean spending one hour per week taking an online course. The more you take action, the more the fear of failure will lose its grip on you — and the bolder you will become. The bolder you become, the more you will be motivated to take action. Along the way, you will gain momentum and become unstoppable.
3. Visualize Yourself Succeeding
Visualisation is a powerful tool for helping you break from the grip of the fear of failure. Picture yourself succeeding at every stage of your dream. Picture yourself achieving the short-term goals you have set. Anytime you are tempted to quit, remind yourself of the benefits you will experience when you achieve your ultimate goal. If possible, write down the reason why you set the goal as well as benefits that achieving the goal will bring you. When you start to feel afraid of taking the next step, read through the list and imagine yourself enjoying those benefits. Such creative visualisation will help you get through the attacks of the fear of failure and keep you motivated to soldier on.
4. Celebrate Every Small Achievement
Celebrating every small achievement conveys to your subconscious that you are winning and making progress. This triggers your brain to release the ‘feel good’ hormone, dopamine which causes a good feeling to wash over you, motivating you to do even more. The more you experience this feeling and take action to achieve your dream, the more you win over the fear of failure.
5. Think of the Regrets that Will Forever Hunt You if You Did Not Try
When you are old, you will look back at your life and either have a lot of regrets or find joy in the way you have lived and the things you did in the prime of your youth. If you allow the fear of failure to keep you from pursuing your dreams, I can assure you right now that at end, you will look back at your life with regrets. If you try and fail, at least you will know that you tried; you gave it your best shot; it just did not work out. But if you fail to try because you are afraid of failing, you will forever be haunted not knowing if you would have succeeded if you had tried. Flip the fear of failure crippling you today into fear of the future pain you will experience if you do not pursue your dream and use it to drive you to go after your dream.
6. Feed Your Mind With Positive Inputs
Winning in life is a war that is waged on a daily basis. And this war is waged in the mind, where thoughts and beliefs seek to take hold. If the negative beliefs of scarcity and failure take hold of your mind, it will be very difficult for you to achieve anything worthwhile. On the other hand, if the thoughts of abundance and success are entrenched on your mind, it will just be a question of time before you achieve all your goals. This is why it is important that you feed your mind with the positive inputs that will centre your thoughts on abundance, possibilities and success.
Read books that contain the stories of people who faced overwhelming odds but end up succeeding. Look for and watch YouTube videos interviews of successful people or where they gave talks. Listen to TEDx Talks and read articles and profiles that you find inspirational. And finally, create a dream board in your bedroom or study that should contain articles such as: pictures of the things you want to accomplish, quotes from successful individuals and a clear articulation of your dream. These will help you conquer self-doubts and the fear of failure.
7. Programme Your Mind to Accept Failure
There is a common definition of success that says ‘‘success is a process of elimination of failures’’. This definition seems apt because in truth, nothing that is successful today turn out so the first few times. There were several failures before success was eventually achieved. If you want to achieve anything worthwhile, you have to accept that you will fail many times before you eventually achieve your goal. Those failures are no indication that you don’t have what it takes. Rather, they offer feedback that helps you to learn what you need to do differently. By learning from each failure and improving, you dramatically increase the odds of achieving your dream.
8. Create a Support System Around Yourself
There are several bumps and setbacks on the road to success. There will be times when you will be on the brink of simply throwing in the towel. During those times, you will need the advice and comfort of a support team around you to keep you going. This support team could be your family, friends, advisors or mentors who will cheer you and help you stay focused on the end goal so that you will keep going without quitting. No one succeeds all by himself so build a support team around you to aid with the journey.
