I hear people say let your fears motivate you. That may be true for some. However, for others most times fear is immobilizing. It keeps you stuck. You can overcome your fears; it just takes practice and change in your mindset. I will not write about something that I have no experience with. I’m probably the top candidate of fear of failure. Who wants to fail anyway? Last time I checked, no one. Does failure happen? Of course, it does. Not everything works out the way that you thought it would. Does that mean you are a failure, no it doesn’t! Just means that it didn’t work out the way that you THOUGHT it would.
I have had many instances of “fear of failure”. I honestly was sitting here trying to figure out which one to share with you all, lol. Starting this blog would probably be the most recent. I had thought about starting a blog at the end of last year. I had blog topics ready. I had begun writing them and saving them, but I did not take the initiative to actually create a website to post them on until now. Every time I thought, “you know what…I can do this”; 100 more thoughts told me that I couldn’t. The “what if’s” started coming to mind. The “never’s” started showing up in my vocabulary. I spent so much time thinking about how this was not going to work, that months went by. Every time I saw other blog posts, I just knew that what I had to say, was never going to be as good as the other people. I knew that no one was going to read it. It got to the point that I had decided that I was not going to do it. I’d find something else to put my energy into.
But I got my life together by shifting my mindset. A few things helped with that. The first thing was the meme I saw on Facebook. I mentioned this in my bio. But a friend of mine posted a meme about the different brands of bread that are in the stores. One of my “fear of failure” thoughts centered around the idea that everyone else was creating a blog and being successful, but somehow what I had to say would not catch on. I was doing essentially the same thing that everyone else was doing. But the visual of seeing these different brands of bread being sold really put things into perspective. You absolutely can’t have a fear of failure to put out bread knowing that there are 10 other brands out there. You have to be brave! I was going to be brave. Somebody was going to like my blog, the same way that some people only eat Nature’s Own!
The second thing that was helpful in shifting my mind set was my faith. I truly believe that God plants these ideas/goals/dreams in your mind. For me, when I can’t shake the idea of a new goal, dream or project, that confirms that it wasn’t of my own thoughts but of God. If God leads me to it, there is no failure in that. If I inspire one person from these blog posts, I’ve done more than I could ever imagine.
Maybe you’re asking, how can I stop this fear of failure? I can’t tell you that fear or the thought of it will never creep up again, because it just might. But I can tell you that as soon as it does, the way that you go about it will make a world of difference.
Here are some tips about Shifting from unhelpful thoughts to helpful thoughts.
1. Your fear of failure thought probably comes from one of two places: the unknown or past experiences. Recognizing the “why behind the what” provides us with a way of understanding this thought.
2. Once you recognize where it comes from, you can take the necessary steps to shift. Take the time to make a list of pros and cons with this new thing that you think you’re going to fail in. Does your pros outweigh your cons? If your cons are more, challenge yourself to see if this con is realistic or not. Sometimes fears will have us believing a thing to be true but in reality, it’s not.
3. Replace those unhelpful thoughts with positive ones. List all the things that you’ve done that have been great. Toot your own horn to build that self confidence. It’s in there! Write those things down and place them everywhere so that you can be motivated by those positive thoughts.
4. Create a plan. Write the vision and make it plain (Habakkuk 2:2, King James Version of the Bible). Start small. Often times the thought of failing is because we start so big that we can’t see how we are going to get there. But once you break down your goal and put them in small reachable goals, it will decrease those moments feeling like a failure.
5. If you don’t succeed the first time around, don’t give up. Try again. Seriously! The fear of failure is designed to make you want to quit. It’s designed to say, welp I tried but it didn’t work. Shifting mind set to say, well it didn’t work this way, so I’ll try it again with new changes.
You got this! I’m rooting for you!
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