4 Mental Hacks to Stop Letting Failure Control Your Life
Failure doesn’t have to define who you are. Failure is part of the process of life; you learn from it. As Friedrich Nietzsche said, “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger,” popularized in Kelly Clarkson’s song.
Let’s take two scenarios: two people applied for a job, and both failed the interview. The first person gives up and never applies for a job again, but the second person brushes it off and applies again and again and again until he lands a great job.
How do you emulate the characteristics of the second job seeker, and what mental frameworks can you apply to prevent limiting beliefs like fear of Failure from stopping you from achieving your real potential?
In a podcast episode of No Clear Answers by hosts Rikki Goldenberg, Justin Mulvaney, and Corey Wilks, three experienced leadership coaches discussed how to recover from Failure.
Here are the mental hacks I learned from the episode and from my personal experience to help with conquering your fear of Failure:
Failure Isn’t Final When Reframing Your Perspective
I have read well over 50 books about entrepreneurs and starting a business.
The recurring theme I keep learning is that many successful entrepreneurs and professionals have failed multiple times before achieving their success.
They saw failures as a process for continual learning by learning from their mistakes and not as a permanent roadblock but as a temporary setback that leads to new opportunities. You have to push yourself beyond what is comfortable.
So, how do you reframe Failure?
Pro tip: Embrace Failure as a Personal Value
Sara Blakely, founder of Spanx, grew up in a household where Failure was encouraged by her father.
Sara Blakely’s father encouraged his family to embrace Failure by constantly asking them, “What did you fail at today?”
The main reason for asking this question in his home was to reframe Failure, seeing it as a good thing and not something to be ashamed of. Since Failure comes from doing and trying new things, we are often held back due to overblown thoughts of failing, which may stifle us from taking necessary actions.
So, have a daily journaling practice where you ask yourself, ‘What did you fail at today?’ The art of asking yourself the question daily will reframe your mindset around Failure.
Just as reframing Failure is crucial, so is maintaining a positive mindset. One effective way to achieve this is by keeping a ‘compliment list.’
Pro tip: Keep a Compliment List
When pursuing a new venture or creative project, it’s common to experience self-doubt, uncertainty, lack of enthusiasm, anxiety, and even negative criticism or rejection.
In his book Someday Is Today, Matthew Dicks suggests a simple but effective technique: creating a “compliment list.” He wisely advises, “You must hoard the good to counteract the bad.” A compliment list helps you maintain a positive perspective by reminding you of your strengths and achievements.
My advice: Take screenshots of positive comments from e-mails, text messages, or social media, journal every positive conversation, and save them in a Google Doc. Set your laptop to open this document every morning when you log in automatically. It’s a powerful way to start your day on a positive note.
Here is a sample of mine below:
Embracing Failure as Your Greatest Teacher
How can you learn to see Failure as a hidden lesson that it is your responsibility to seek out? Start, get feedback, and iterate on that feedback. If you continually do that, you will not fail; actual Failure is when you give up and stop making progress.
If you’re always learning, reflecting on why you failed, having a system to help you iterate for next time, and operating on that feedback, you will eventually succeed. Keep doing that over and over again until you achieve your success.
You need to adopt the mantra from Silicon Valley of Fail harder, fail often. The quicker you get on with Failure, the quicker your success will come. Imperfect actions with many failures and quick feedback beat delayed perfectionism.
Fear Inoculation
Fear inoculation is much like how vaccines work. Vaccines introduce a small amount of the harmful agent in a controlled environment to help you build up a tolerance or immunity, just in case you encounter the real thing.
Fear inoculation follows a similar concept. Instead of letting fear paralyze you with “what if” scenarios, you deliberately confront those fears and ask yourself: “What if this actually happens?”
The point is to make the unknown known — or at least more familiar. By planning how you’ll deal with your worst-case scenarios, you strip fear of its power over you. When you’re prepared to face Failure or criticism, those fears lose their grip, and it becomes easier to push past limiting beliefs and find real success. That’s the essence of fear inoculation.
Get familiar with rejection in small doses or low-stakes situations so that it doesn’t sting as much when you encounter a high-stakes situation and get rejected.
Fear of Rejection
In the book Million Dollar Weekend, Noah Kagan introduces the concept of the coffee challenge.
He challenges the reader to go to any coffee shop or nearby supermarket, make a simple purchase, and ask for a 10 % discount without saying anything else.
The point of doing the challenge is to practice asking and getting rejected. Remember, what is the worst that can happen? I promise you, you will not lose a limb. With enough practice, by the time you ask that client for $10,000 for offering a service or product, if he says no, you won’t feel bad. You learn, improve your offer, and move on to the next client.
Asking is a muscle, and this challenge is the gym. Learning to ask is just like building any new habit. Start small and increase slowly. The best way to overcome your fear in the long term is with short-term games of rejection. Remember: This challenge is designed for you to get rejected! The point is to experience Failure and get past it. Once you start getting a few rejections, you’ll realize it’s not as bad as you think. This is a powerful step in creating your million-dollar business. Enjoy the fear. Ask!
-Kagan, Noah. Million Dollar Weekend
Fear of Public Speaking
In 2023, wanting to improve my public speaking and overcome my anxiety and fear of public speaking, I joined UltraSpeaking, a cohort-based course for public speaking. The cohort capitalizes on using fear inoculation through consistent practice in small-group settings.
You repeatedly practice speaking in front of small groups and get so comfortable and confident that when speaking in a large group, you are not paralyzed.
As a result, my fear of Failure in public speaking has significantly diminished.
Meditation or Swimming
Even after implementing the hacks above, your mind may play tricks on you and still put you in a state of anxiety and overthinking when faced with the fear of Failure.
You should use calming activities like meditation or swimming to stop your mind from going into overdrive and reflect on all the above hacks and techniques to regain focus and have a calmer perspective.
Remember the theme
Don’t let Failure write your story; you’re the author. Use Failure as a tool for growth.
The following hacks will help you stop letting Failure control your life:
- Failure Isn’t Final When Reframing Your Perspective
- Sara Blakely’s Lesson: Embracing Failure as a Family Value — Ask yourself, ‘What did you fail at today?’
- Keep a Compliment List
- Embracing Failure as Your Greatest Teacher
- Fear Inoculation: Go to any coffee shop or supermarket, make a purchase, and ask for a 10 % discount. Practice public speaking in a small setting.
- Meditation or Swimming
The hacks above are what I wish my younger self had access to, but you do have access to these hacks, so don’t make the same mistakes I made by letting fear dictate your life.
If you have struggled with Failure and figured out how to overcome it, please comment on your experiences in this article.
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