A wise man once told me that the way you talk to yourself really matters and let me tell you, he was right. At first I wasn’t sure what he meant, but in time it became clear – If you constantly put yourself down or tell yourself you are going to fail, then you WILL in fact fail. Your mindset really matters, but the way you talk to yourself matters even more because words are a powerful thing. One of my biggest regrets in life was not believing in that.
A big thing in life, for me, was holding back because I was afraid of failing. In some cases I would not even try, because I was afraid of failure. Believe me when I tell you, not trying something because you are afraid to fail is a problem and with that mindset you will miss so many great opportunities.
As the old saying goes “ You miss 100 percent of the shots you don’t take!”.
Regrettably in my own life I have held myself back from doing some amazing things, that was until I asked for help in trying to overcome these thoughts of failure.
So today I thought that I would share with all of you some of the things I do personally to help overcome that fear of failure when it starts trying to make an appearance in my life. My hope is that it gets you thinking and helps you to find some tools that you can use in your own life.
Now these are just the top 3 techniques I use the most, so if you want to hear more in the future I’d be happy to share them.
The first thing I always employ is consistently having a “Plan B”.
Now I know some of you may be thinking ‘how is that supposed to help me?’. Well it is actually much simpler than you think. If you are afraid you are going to fail at something then having that Plan B in place before you start can help you feel more confident in trying. This is because you know that if it does not work, there is a backup plan that you can rely on instead, kind of like a security blanket. It can give us that boost in confidence we need to really stretch ourselves outside that negative thought process and in turn we may move forward with our task. But to be honest with you all, I sometimes keep a Plan C as well, just because i believe you can never have too many options.
The Second thing is that I take a step back and analyze all of the possible outcomes for the given task or situation.
Now, I can hear some of you saying but WHYYY? Well, many of us as human beings tend to experience the fear of failure simply because we fear the unknown. When we take the time to step back, we consider all of the possible outcomes and again we go into it with more confidence. We are now fully aware of every outcome and therefore there are no surprises at the end, hence removing the fear of the unknown from the entire equation.
The Final technique is if i know something has to be done but again the fear of failure is holding me back, I will break the task down into smaller goals.
The reason for doing this, is that by starting small and working your way up to the biggest portion, you can think of all of these small goals as early wins or “Confidence Boosters”. By the time you reach the final task – the one that you have been fearing, you have more confidence, self-esteem and desire to take it on. This is because you have already conquered the previous small but slightly challenging (and sometimes overwhelming) tasks before this one. I know that this may seem slightly obvious to some, but when we get ourselves really worked up and get stuck in a negative thought pattern, sometimes it is the easier solution that does the best for us in the end.
With all of this being said, I would love to hear what things you use to help yourself overcome the fear of failure and negative thoughts. Drop a comment below with some of the techniques you use. I hope that you have found these tips at least a bit helpful and like I said, if you want to hear more about some of the other things I do, then feel free to comment and I can most certainly write another post at a later date.
So until the next time stay safe, be kind and have a great day!
-Matthew-
