3 Healthy Ways To Tackle The Fear Of Failure In Business
Don’t be pushed around by the fears in your mind,
Be led by the dreams in your heart.
~Unknown
What is the fear of failure?
The fear of making an error or failing at an endeavor; concern over doing something which could lead to mishap.
As an entrepreneur, there is one thing that you probably have in common with your fellow entrepreneurs: the fear of failure. When we are just starting out with our businesses, we do everything possible to avoid mistakes so as not to be considered failures. But what if those mistakes were necessary for growth? What if they helped us learn more about ourselves and our business?
Failure and fearing failure is not something most people like to talk about, but it’s definitely something all entrepreneurs deal with at some point. Fear of failing is an emotional response caused by the anticipation or experience of possible negative outcomes for your venture.
But failure isn’t always bad! In fact, failure can teach us more about ourselves than success ever will – especially if you use it as an opportunity to learn something new.
How constantly living in fear drains us of our energy
Understanding our body’s operation in the fear mode-
The amygdala is the part of our brain that controls fear and emotions, and is constantly scanning for threats in our environment. When we feel unsafe or threatened, this organ fires and makes us fearful which causes adrenaline and cortisol to release into the bloodstream to prepare us for flight or fight. Fear also triggers an automatic response from our bodies which can result in feelings such as increased heart rate and breathing rates, dry mouth, and nausea.
The thing is, you don’t even have to face a REAL fearful situation for your body to produce this, you can simply think about it and get to your face flushing and sweaty. So, when you are in this constant state of worrying and fearing- about the comments or no comments on your social media posts, making the next sale, having to go and speak up, the body uses so much energy in actually running the fear circuit, it doesn’t take much before these emotions become overwhelming feelings which starts the chain reaction leading up into bursts panic attacks, highs stress, incontinence, depression etc…the list goes.
Since Operating in this mode takes up a lot of energy, it leaves very little energy for creative thinking that would bring joy to your work and life.
And when we have spent all our energy in this survival mode, where is the energy left to dream, and create- which is the first job of an entrepreneur.
How can we manage the Fear of Failure
1. Addressing our mindset
If you’re as old as me and went to a traditional school, you received grades at the end of every year and a big stamp stating you either passed or failed that decided whether you were promoted to the next grade the following year. Failing was an embarrassment. Failing was bad. This is the limited mindset that I grew up with, and so did many of us.
As Researcher Carol Dweck puts it, this limited mindset causes us to believe that because we failed at something, we are a failure and we don’t believe that we can actually learn from our mistakes. So, adopting a Growth Mindset, where we take every failed opportunity to learn, challenge ourselves and make progress is key to dealing with our relationship with failure.
2. Clearly defining success and redefining failure
Out of the 5 things you’ve done on a particular project, one of them might not have gone perfectly as planned. Does this make you feel you’ve failed? It probably will, if you have not defined what success is. So, what is success? For example, say the target for the month is to make 50 sales. So, yes, making those 100% of the sales is success but what if you made 80% of the targeted sale? What if you made 50% of the sale? Further down to 35%? You could use the traditional school grading system and assign yourselves grades and be as kind to yourself while doing so. So,you could label 100% suuccess rate as- flying colours, 80% through 35% labelled as- Awesome work and anything below 35% could be labelled as- Go back to the drawing board and review the plan. This strategy puts you in a better mindset to constructively look at failure.
3. Preparation Preparation Preparation
Did you know that your brain really doesn’t know whether you’re having an experience for real- in the physical world or you’re just making it up…in your head. (If you are interested to know more about this, there’s lot you can learn from Dr.Joe Dispenza’s work)
Yes, and the beauty of this is that you can use this wonderful gift to practice the scenario in your head, over and over again- so that when you actually face it for real, you are immune to it, it does not become a new and you’re less likely to fail in it.
Final Thoughts
Many times it can feel like your life is on a treadmill- Like you’re just going through the motions and not really living. We all have those moments where we wonder if there’s more to our lives than this. And it can be scary, right?
What if you try something new and fail miserably? What if people laugh at you for trying?
The fear of failure can be crippling to our success. If we don’t take the time and effort to address this mindset, it will lead us down a path that prevents us from achieving even more than we set out for ourselves in the first place. It’s enough to make anyone want to stay in their comfort zone forever. But here’s the thing – staying in your comfort zone doesn’t actually keep things comfortable at all! In fact, it usually makes them much harder than they need to be because eventually everything becomes so familiar that it stops being interesting or exciting anymore.
If you find yourself struggling with your business or personal goals because you are afraid that they will fail, browse our Life Coaches for some hand holding to explore this topic more deeply in your own time and build yourself to being fearless.