My biggest fear is Failure

Renata Félix
Nov 4 · 5 min read
Photo by Kat J on Unsplash

Today I’m sharing a story of something that happened to me at the start of this year. I was still in college and I was looking for a final internship so I could finish my degree.

I was only going to be starting in November but I had to plan everything ahead. I started emailing lab researchers and I scored an interview with a researcher that is one of the best in my city. I was thrilled!

The day came. I picked the best outfit: something put together but not too classy. I wanted to look like a true scientist. I put on some makeup, not too much. I didn’t want him to think that I wasn’t smart enough — something that I now realize is a ridiculous thought — and I replayed the speech I had prepared over and over again in my head.

I prepared myself for perfection — anything else was not acceptable. Soon, the big day was approaching.

I got out of the bus with a smile on my face, I was confidently walking to the building when I decided to look in my phone to check the time. It was 14h20. I was 40 minutes early.

That’s when I started to overthink. I arrived too early. Suddenly, my reflection was tacky and not worth it. My grades, my grades weren’t great either. I was never going to be able to work in a place like that. My speech? It was terrible. What if I was asked about this or that? I wouldn’t know the answer.

I doubted myself so much that when I realized what I was doing, I was catching the bus home. This was a once in a lifetime opportunity. The chance of turning my future in a completely new direction and I was going to waste it.

‘’Snap out of it Renata, you can do this’’, I said to myself.

So I went back, I went to the interview, and the guy was great. He was young, he loved my résumé, and he was actually very interested in scientific speaking, which was something I wanted to work on.

I ended up not getting the spot because he had to take in a Ph.D. student, but we kept in touch and did some work together later.

Anyways, my point is:

I was so afraid of failing that wasn’t even going to try.

So, it hit me. Am I the only one who feels like this? Am I the only one afraid of failing? Afraid of not being good enough?

So I decided to ask my friends about their fears. Do they worry about the future? Their answers were very similar. Besides the fear of climate change, which you can read more about here and here, they all feared that they would fail or that they wouldn’t be happy even after fighting for their dreams and their education.

So, being the nerd I am, I decided to do some research online about how youth really feels and what it fears.

My first find was that we develop a fear of failing for two different reasons:

  1. Peer Pressure/Fitting in: we don’t want to be cast out by our peers because we are seen as outcasts or people who can’t achieve success, so we tend to prevent ourselves from getting in situations where we could possibly fail.
  2. Disappointing our parents/grownups: we grow up surrounded by these important figures in our lives that constantly support us and push us to do better. We look up to them and we need their approval, in most cases, to validate our achievements. Failing to meet their expectations can lead to disappointing these people, something we often want to avoid at all costs.

I discovered that, according to a report on SDG3, suicide is the second-highest cause of death among people between the ages of 15 to 29. It’s the second-highest cause of death among youth.

Besides that, I was introduced to the concept of the same-day crisis. One of the lead reasons for suicide.

A same-day crisis happens when, someone, constantly starts their day in a very happy mood and, as the day progresses, some event happens that completely ruins that feeling. That event can be getting fired from a job, getting into a break-up, being exposed to an embarrassing situation or even failing a test. — all of these events have something in common: they are all associated with failure.

What I want to leave you with is that it’s ok to fail. We are going to do so many times in our lives. But we need to start to look at it as an opportunity to try again. To learn. To improve.

Did you fail a class? You have the chance to do it again and get a better grade!

Did you fail in an interview? You can use the feedback and improve it for the next one!

Did you fail at not embarrassing yourself? Now you have a funny story to tell your friends!

The point is, a situation is only as bad as we allow it to be. It’s normal to be fearful, we have been in that position at least once in our lives. When we were children and we couldn’t sleep alone because we were afraid of the dark, for example.

But we always overcame it. One way or another. We always found a way to overcome it.

That’s what we have to do. If I had never gone to that interview I would have never discovered that I don’t want to be a scientist, and that what I really want to do is inspire people through my words about topics that matter.

Going to this interview completely turned my life around. I could have been unhappy for the rest of my life, but got over my fears and that helped me turn my life in the right direction.

That’s my advice to you. Take a leap of hope and speak loud and clear about what makes you stay awake at night.

A great way you can start to speak up is by filling this survey. Right now, AIESEC is conducting a survey called Youth Speak Survey, where we are trying to collect the youth’s voice on different subjects - one of them being what we fear for the future. Go and speak your truth.

Youth for Global Goals

Youth 4 Global Goals (Youth4GG)is the SDG Initiative of AIESEC that aims to mobilize 1.8 Billion youth towards the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals. We do this by raising awareness about the SDGs, engaging youth and allowing them to take action.

Renata Félix

Written by

Youth4GlobalGoals blog writter

Youth for Global Goals

Youth 4 Global Goals (Youth4GG)is the SDG Initiative of AIESEC that aims to mobilize 1.8 Billion youth towards the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals. We do this by raising awareness about the SDGs, engaging youth and allowing them to take action.

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