Afraid of failure?
15 Mental strategies for the path to personal and professional success
Fear of failure is an emotion common in many people that can arise because we think we will not succeed in what we set out to do. This fear can be managed with a few mental strategies.
Fear of failure – coping strategies
1. Critical voice/self-compassion
Growing up, parents, teachers and other children shared opinions about us. Some of these opinions were negative, and perhaps sometimes insulting. Because we did not have a formed self-image, we took some of these criticisms and integrated them into our perception of ourselves. So we have a part of ourselves that we will call the “critical voice”. We may say about ourselves that “I am incapable” or “I am not as smart as other people” or “I will never succeed”. These thoughts make us afraid of failure, and we are actually afraid of these thoughts being confirmed. It is important to be aware of these thoughts (this critical voice) in order to be able to cope.
Once we are aware of when we are being critical of ourselves ineffectively, we can fight the critical side, setting boundaries, and making arguments against what the “critical voice” says.
For example: the thought “I’m not as smart as other people” can turn into “each of us has our own abilities and we can be successful by using those abilities to our advantage.”
2. Overwhelm
If we criticize ourselves a lot, we start to feel overwhelmed. We set unrealistic standards that we have to reach. For example, an unrealistic standard might be to give a public presentation without stuttering at all. This thought can put pressure on us and also increase stress and anxiety levels.
Some people believe that setting high standards will motivate them to do their best. Sometimes, the opposite is true. We feel stress and anxiety because of these thoughts, increasing the chances of stuttering during the presentation, and thus only confirming these thoughts. Basically, we sabotage ourselves.
3. Managing emotions
It is important to learn emotion management techniques. First would be breathing exercises. These can be used during the situation that causes fear of failure, but also before. A simple breathing exercise would be to breathe in for 4 seconds, hold the breath for 1 second and breathe out in 7 seconds. This exercise helps us to focus on our breathing (and less on negative thoughts), but it also helps to relax the body.
Another exercise would be mindfulness-or living in the present. Sometimes fear of failure comes from previous experiences we think about when we have failed. So it is important to live in the present: what we can control now, what is around us.
4. Reporting success/failure
We need to ask ourselves the question “what does failure and success mean to me?”; not for our teachers or our parents or our friends, but for ourselves. Of course, it needs to be realistic standards.
It’s important to ask ourselves what we want our lives to look like in the future and try to achieve those goals. For some people, success may mean a career, for others a family, and for others it means having as many experiences as possible (e.g. through traveling).
There is no wrong way to live our lives, only to live them the way others want us to.
5. Acceptance
Acceptance is a very common concept nowadays, especially on social media. Everyone is urging us to accept ourselves and the situations in our lives. It is not that easy, but it is important. The more we resist an unavoidable situation, the more frustration increases. If we manage to accept ourselves, both our faults and our qualities, we can use them to our advantage. For example, we find it difficult to speak in public. We can choose to blame ourselves for it and compare ourselves with others. Or we can accept ourselves and see how we can acquire these skills: through courses, for example.
Also, we cannot control every situation in our lives. That’s the interesting part of life. All experiences can come into our lives to teach us something. No situation is just good, or just bad. It is part of our life story.
6. Awareness
Just like acceptance, awareness is a process that considered important. And it’s because we can’t act effectively for ourselves if we don’t first realize how effective or not to act.
One exercise people can do is to connect with the sensations in the body. Suppose we have to take a written exam. What do we feel at that moment? Anxiety. But how do we know it’s anxiety? We mentally scan our body: we feel a lump in our throat, our body is tense. Then we can do a breathing exercise to release this pressure.
7. Setting realistic and clear objectives
It is important to set goals that are achievable by us. It is good that SMART. To better understand, I will follow an example. SMART is an acronym which is composed of:
Specific (the objective must be clear, simple and meaningful: I want to get to Bucharest from Iași by car),
Measurable (the objective has a progress indicator: if reaching Bucharest is 100% successful, then if we reach Bacău, then we have achieved a percentage of this 100%),
Accessible/achievable (to be able to do it, to have a driving license),
Realistic/ relevant (result-oriented, what motivates me to want to achieve the goal),
time-bound (the achievement of the goal is within a certain period of time: in January, or next week). The more vague the goals, the more anxiety can increase – we don’t know exactly what we want to achieve.
8. Creating a plan to achieve your objectives
Having set a realistic goal, we need to make a plan. Let’s break it down into smaller goals. If we only see the big picture, it can be overwhelming for us. Thus, it is recommended to focus only on the next step.
If we are driving at night to reach our goal of getting to Bucharest, the headlights will not light our way to Bucharest, but only a stretch in front of us.
The plan is important to have several steps that we can check off.
For example, if we want to give a presentation to a group, we first need to think of the idea, sketch the presentation, create the visual support, rehearse and then just deliver it.
9. It’s just a failure, YOU are valuable as a person!
The way we talk to ourselves can influence the outcome of the event. Thus, inner speech carries a lot of weight.
We need to see failures as isolated situations, which do not define us as people, but are just part of our experience. If I don’t do well at math, it doesn’t mean I’m incapable as a person, because I have other skills.
Throughout our lives, we are told that our value as a person is in how many failures I have, how many successes, where I rank, which is far removed from our concrete abilities and acceptance.
10. What can we improve after failure?
The realistic view of failure includes understanding how we can improve our skills. Consider experiences as ways of learning.
We can only learn through mistakes. It is important to allow ourselves to make mistakes!
11. Why are you scared of failure?
In the process of our personal development, understanding the past also comes into play. As adults, we can understand where our reactions, thoughts, emotions come from. We can become aware of them and then change them.
To better understand, I have chosen to use an example: if our parents have always compared us with our brother who is smarter, more attentive, more conscientious, more diligent, we will consider that there is something wrong with us and that we are inferior to other people.
12. Change negative thoughts
Once we are aware of these thoughts, it is important to change them in order to act effectively. Some questions we can ask ourselves are: “Does it help us to think this way?”; “Does it make sense to think this way?”“Do we have concrete evidence/concrete situations that support these thoughts?”; “Do we have concrete evidence/concrete situations that do NOT support these thoughts?”.
An example would be: we have an exam coming up and we think that we won’t pass the exam, we won’t write anything, we won’t be able to learn anything. These are our thoughts, we realize them. Then we ask ourselves if these thoughts help us. And the answer is no, because we feel anxiety, we feel fear, and we don’t learn as well. We wonder if it makes sense to think like that. The answer is no, because we have had experiences in the past when we managed to get the grade we wanted in exams. I have no evidence that we would fail to pass the exam, and the evidence against the thinking would be the fact that we have passed other exams and studied for this exam.
13. Self-confidence/positive thoughts
Self-confidence is vital to dealing with failure and to see it as a normal part of life, not something catastrophic. Continually develop your skills to be prepared and increase your self-confidence.
Another useful exercise is to make a list of all the times when we have been successful and reread it at times when we doubt ourselves.
14. Act despite your fear!
Fear is a basic, normal emotion, that helps us avoid danger. If we go into the forest and meet a bear on the road, fear will help us stay out of its way. If we didn’t feel fear, we wouldn’t survive.
Instead, anxiety is an emotion that stems from fear of an imaginary, rather than real, danger. Thus, we feel anxiety about situations that are not life-threatening: an exam, a presentation, a trip, a conversation, a meeting, etc. In addition to controlling our emotions and thoughts, it is important to gradually expose and confront the situations that cause us anxiety, in order to create new experiences. For example, if we feel anxious about giving presentations in public, we can start giving presentations in front of a group of people we know.
15. Ask for help
If you feel that you can’t cope with the fear of failure, it’s good to to seek counseling.
There are also people around you who can help, you just need to let them!
Conclusions
Fear of failure is a natural but manageable reaction that can become a major obstacle to personal and professional success. With the help of effective mental strategies such as becoming aware of negative thoughts, managing emotions, setting clear and realistic goals, and developing self-confidence, we can learn to face this fear and turn it into an opportunity for growth.
It is important to accept our imperfections, learn from our mistakes and act even in the face of our fears. Failure should not be seen as a threat, but as a valuable lesson that can lead us to the success we want.
Autor: Psih. Diana Monor – Psychotherapist, Doctor of Psychology
Clinica Med Anima Iași
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