Opening Thoughts
The fear of failure is a powerful deterrent that prevents people from taking action. This could range from asking that person out, to asking for a raise or promotion, or taking the risk of starting that business you’ve always been dreaming about.
This fear is deeply embedded within our subconscious. Some smart people would probably describe it as a survival instinct from our earlier days, a means of us surviving in an uncertain world with danger always lurking around the corner.
This fear isn’t a binary sensation, going immediately from 0 to 100 like spider man’s spider senses, it’s closer to a spectrum with more subtle but connected emotions that stem from it whenever we find ourselves in uncomfortable situations.
These subtle emotions could manifest themselves as butterflies in your stomach because of an upcoming presentation or a feeling a nausea anytime you think about having that uncomfortable conversation with your friend, partner or manager.
Fear and it’s siblings are emotions that we all deal with, but the ones who are willing to confront this emotion are people who end up taking action. This action is what leads to consistency. The consistency leads to improvement. This improvement leads to growth. This growth leads to success and the individual’s desired results eventually follows.
The fear of failure is a wall that separates us from our desired reality.
This wall often seems insurmountable. It is generally built on a weak but very prevalent foundation – one that states most people won’t try. They won’t try to approach, let alone scale or break through it because they assume it’s impossible before even taking their first step.
Let’s talk about fear and progress.
Butterflies In Your Stomach
You know that feeling you get whenever you have to do a presentation in front of your classmate or colleagues? The twisting sensation in the middle of your gut anytime you even think of any form of public thinking. The feeling of butterflies in your stomach.
This is a pretty subtle form of fear that is generally enough to stop most people from stepping onto the stage. Along the fear spectrum, this sensation is more akin to nervousness than a full blown panic attack. But this general sense of unease is a trigger that activates our survival instinct. Our innate desire to survive leads us as humans to always seek the path of least resistance. The problem is this path is a highway to stagnancy.
When I was a teenager watching the NBA, I remember being shocked when several NBA players, guys that have played in front of sold-out crowds their entire lives, said they would still get goosebumps before each game. This was a simple line that wouldn’t register to most people but it stood out like a grey hair to me. This was only a couple of years after my family moved to another town. I remember being too nervous on the first day of school to introduce myself and play with my new classmates during morning recess before classes officially started.
To have even a superstar NBA player casually mention getting a little nervous before games was shocking. At that point in my life, I believed that being nervous was a valid reason to not take action 🤯. Even though these giants got nervous before games, they still went out and played. It wasn’t that they were completely desensitized to any degree of fear but that they would just take action. Even with goosebumps they would step out onto the court and play in front of millions of people where every little action was eligible for scrutiny, whether they have a highlight play or where found picking their nose on the sideline. Millions of people were watching every single night.
This was the first time in my life that I came to realize that fear could be overcome in real-life and not just in the movies or in cartoons.
Cringe Worthy
As I’ve gotten older and have gone through various experiences and learned from the experiences of different people, I’ve begun to gain clarity of what I want out of life and what I need to do to get there. I’ve also come to accept the fear and its echoes in my mind as a necessary part of the journey. I’ve heard it stated in various ways that bravery isn’t the absence of fear but recognizing the emotion and still acting anyway.
Fear is not something you overcome, it comes with you.
This is a line I heard recently that’s resonated with me. It encapsulates my evolved philosophy regarding stress management. Even when a superstar soccer player is nervous because the upcoming game is important, they still show up on the pitch and try to lead their team to victory. After years of nervousness preceding each game, their repeated exposure has minimized this emotion into either goosebumps or butterflies in their stomach.
In other words, you have to be consistent and constantly take one step closer to the wall everyday (or on a predetermined schedule if you follow the 15-Minute Workday). My belief now is that I’d rather be embarrassed for trying than regret not trying at all. I’m embracing the cringe like a close friend I haven’t seen in a long time.
Staying In The Game / Gas Stations
Achieving your goals comes down to how long it takes to fill the progress bar. Meaning that every attempt gets you closer to your desired outcome. Most people are under the impression that they only have one chance to make things work or that they need an inhumane degree of sell-belief in order to not be deterred by the spectre of failure. However, the engine that keeps a lot of successful people moving isn’t fueled by delusion or supreme confidence. They operate with the understanding that the world is filled with gas stations and when they start running low on fuel they can always refuel. Each gas station is basically a milestone indicating that they are getting closer to their destination.
This means being consistent and showing up for yourself. Not letting your nervousness transmigrate along the fear spectrum to become a panic attack but instead repeatedly exposing ourselves to the wall and stepping closer. This leads to the nervousness moving to the opposite direction of the fear spectrum and becomes more akin to goosebumps or butterflies in your stomach.
Fear Spectrum
Let me elaborate on what I call the fear spectrum. It is a spectrum of a singular emotion, fear, but at ever increasing degrees of intensity and potency.
On the left end, you have goosebumps, a subtle uptick in your awareness of the moment. You start to become more aware of your surroundings but most importantly, you notice the change in temperature. It’s colder and you’re slightly underdressed or maybe it’s gotten hot all of a sudden and you’re starting to sweat a little. It’s a slight discomfort but bearable if you either don’t think about it or keep your body moving.
The next node on the spectrum are the butterflies in your stomach. This is a slightly more intense feeling and where the sensations starts to take place in various parts of your body. This feels like a slight stomach ache as if you may have forgotten to use the restroom. This feeling typically precedes a performance, presentation or discussion. This is where most people stop. The discomfort is just enough for people to take a step back away from the wall.
The second-to-last node is the feeling of being anxious or nervous. This is when you heart starts pounding aggressively and you find yourself out of breath. There’s a leak in your system (your mind) that is causing you to hemorrhage stamina. This feeling is intense enough that the mere thought of certain discomforts is even to elicit this sensation.
The final node on the spectrum is a full-blown panic attack, not in the medical sense were you pass out and end up in the hospital. It’s the feeling of your heart beating so violently it hurt your rib cage. Your mind starts racing but is weirdly also focused on one scenario, all the ways things can go wrong. Most people won’t make it far enough in their journey to truly experience this emotion because they’ve long decided that discomfort is…too uncomfortable.
I’ve really only felt this once so far, I was waiting for a client to hop on my very first sales call for an digital marketing agency I had started. As the time go closer and closer I found myself spiralling more and more into a state of panic. I wasn’t ready and didn’t know what I was doing. Every fiber in my being was telling me to cancel the call because I would surely embarrass myself. Fortunately, I fought against this feeling and never canceled it. I didn’t allow the mindset to talk me out of making progress and growing as a person. Thanks to the basketball player who still showed up to play in front of millions of fans even though they get a little nervous at times before hand.
Thought Process
Let’s get into ways of managing fear and not letting it dictate our lives:
- Understand that fear is always going to be a part of you but those voices of doubt (mindsent) subside with time and exposure
- Remember that success is on the other side of fear, failure, and embarrassment
- Each “failure” is just another attempt at getting closer to your goals
- You have multiple attempts and only get better each time
- Take action – embarrassment is more bearable than a life of regrets
Closing Thoughts
Think of managing fear as building a muscle. In order to build a muscle you have to exercise it (i.e. go to the gym). If you only go to the gym once every couple of months you will make any progress. This may lead to feeling a sense of regret for never getting into shape and feeling some envy over those with the “gift” of motivation. However, we are all given a gift at the beginning of each day – time and life. No matter how old you are, you have as much time as you are willing to give yourself. If you goal is going to take 5 years and you understand those 5 years will pass no matter what, then it becomes easier to go the process and get as many “attempts” as needed until you fill up the progress bar.
We all deal with fear, myself included, I’m trying to build a life that is inline with my goals. I’m not there yet (or even close for that matter) but I’m showing up for myself every day. I’m willing to put in the time and effort to achieve my goal because once my progress bar is filled up my fear and “failure” will be a funny part of my story.
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