Is Fear of Failure Holding you Back?

If I think back to roughly seven years ago, my barely-teenage self would have had Coldplay’s ‘Fix You’ on repeat while walking home. The famous lyric, ‘When you try your best but you don’t succeed,’ made a mark on my adolescent mind back then and I guess it has never really left. I used to wake up with the thought of it, write it down and sing it out whenever I had the opportunity.

When the world around you tries to make believe that you aren’t good enough and don’t try hard enough, the worry that you’re failing starts to stick.

Recently, I have found myself spiralling back down into the toxic circle of conformity and self-pressure. Often new adventures and new life phases come with new challenges. These challenges are unfamiliar and can seem impossible to overcome. Thirteen-year-old me pops into my head, repeating ‘when you try your best but you don’t succeed…’ for some kind of comfort.

But now, older and wiser (or so I like to think), I know there is more to success than other people’s opinions and perception of the word itself. The question I ask myself now is – when will the fear of failure become too real? When will the consequence become not trying at all?

In today’s busy, fast-paced world, failure is often deemed unacceptable. We are encouraged to create and innovate but also to avoid making mistakes or ‘wasting’ resources like time or money. Surely, the only real failure in life is when you stop trying. When the fear of failure takes control.

If you haven’t heard this recently, let me be the one to remind you:

We were not made to be perfect. We were not made to be great at everything we attempt.

As crazy as it sounds, fear and failure are not your enemies. The fear is a biological response that is triggered by your brain when it perceives a threat in your environment. Your brain then makes a decision based on this perceived threat, regardless of whether or not it actually is one. The good news is that it is then up to you to decide whether to let it affect you.

Don’t let the fear of failure stop you from achieving and accomplishing for yourself. There is no need to achieve in order to please other people. In fact, the biggest success is to try solemnly for yourself and nobody else.