How to Overcome Your Fear of Failure by Leigh Martinuzzi 

Perhaps the number one thing that holds me back in life is the fear of failure. I am certainly one person that takes courage and continually strive to make bold changes in my life. This has allowed me to find ways to overcome the fear of failure and believe me I continue to suffer with this disease yet I am getting better all the time.

First of all let’s understand where it begins and that is within our mind. The fear of failure exists in your head either due to you never have taken action towards overcoming that particular fear or because you have previously taken action and failed, thus creating nervousness or fear to take similar actions once again.

Have you ever heard of the amygdala? These are little almond sized parts of our brain responsible for memory, emotions and our survival instincts. Apparently there are two of them. Without these little suckers perhaps we would have a much greater ease in overcoming our fears. Yet at the same time it is our amygdala that protects us from harm, injury or death.

The amygdala communicates with other areas of the brain and when we are faced with fear it helps us understand and protect us from taking action that may result in harm, pain or injury. It also stores memory of past experiences so that in the future you will avoid such actions again.

It can assist us in remembering both positive and negative emotions. If a dog is rewarded with a tasty treat after some good behaviour they too will have positive memory stored and in future when they experience the same behaviour they will ultimately remember the reward and start to salivate.

For angry or aggressive people your amygdala will be larger than those who possess more calmness qualities. For those with higher levels of testosterone and with higher sex drives you too will no doubt have larger amygdalae.

So the next time you avoid action out of the fear to fail you can simple blame your amygdala. It is either trying to stop you from getting in harms way or it remembers back to last time you did such things and failed. It simple doesn’t want you to receive and negative emotions by proceeding. Equally for all those favourable or positive behaviours and actions it will simply allow us to carry on in this regard with much greater ease.

You can stand up to your amygdala and prove to it that you can take action and that it wont lead to any major pain or humiliation by doing so. This is by power of your thoughts. Your thoughts become your actions and your actions become things.

Here is a great quote by the Dalia Lama,

“Take care of your Thoughts because they become Words.

Take care of your Words because they will become Actions.

Take care of your Actions because they will become Habits.

Take care of your Habits because they will form your Character.

Take care of your Character because it will form your Destiny,

and your Destiny will be your Life…”

This quote highlights the power of our thoughts. By having powerful and self reassuring thoughts you can build up a very powerful tolerance towards all that you fear.

Think back to when you first did something that you perhaps use to create some fear. Like driving for example. I know for me the thought originally of getting behind the wheel and going for a drive made me slightly nervous. This fear was slightly lessened by being able to have grown up watching and observing others driving, particularly my parents. However at the beginning it was not a walk in the park.

For all that we are fearful of we can train ourselves and our thoughts to overcome them by simply observing others. Most likely what you desire to do or tackle has already been tackled by someone else and by watching them practice that action or behavior is one great technique to give us some much needed self assurance to challenge that fear.

Take public speaking for example. If you watch enough confident speakers present you will learn not only techniques on effective speaking but will also gain confidence to take action yourself. When others can do it and we observe them doing it, our mental makeup will shift to understand that the challenge is perhaps not such a challenge and can actually be achieved.

After observation we may still have a deep undesirable fear, this is where our self talk kicks in. We often tell ourselves that while they can do it I certainly am not so gifted. This often puts us at a grinding halt.

We then must take courage to act. Through action you will create positive pathways in your brain and amygdala that strengthens your ability to continue practicing those actions moving forward.

Going back to when you learnt to drive, I know that each time I got behind the wheel I gained more confidence. To today when I drive there is not simply a thought in my head that triggers and dread or fear and often I drive without even realising or being highly aware of what I am doing. This is when by repetitive action we build habits.

The things we fear the most or are most uncomfortable with are often only overcome when we take action and often what we feared was not nearly as fearful in hindsight after taking positive action. You may have heard this before, but true growth happens outside our comfort zone. This is without a doubt, true.

From there, like anything we set to do, practice creates perfection and in the process the fear is absorbed and we are set to challenge new fears.

The challenge and fear can come about again and reoccur and usually does so when we make a mistake of fail while carrying out such desirable actions or behaviors. If as a confident driver you crash your car you may feel less confident next time you get behind the wheel. If you forget your lines when speaking to an audience, you will be more mindful next time you take action to speak.

When you fall down when skiing or snowboarding and injure yourself you be a little more cautious the next time you try the black run. You may perhaps do a few moderate runs first to build up your confidence again.

What ever the case as you continue to get back up after and setbacks or failings your will find it much easier every time you do so. This is simple because your neural pathways have formed great bonds that create positive reinforcement that supports you each time you do it again.

So now it’s your turn to take action. For that one thing you’ve been putting off for some time, it is now time to take action. Go out and fight those fears and you will certainly overcome them.

I have a fear of heights and now that I am aware, every time I get an opportunity to be at high altitudes, I take the challenge, so that in time my fear of heights will be minimal or even non-existent.

Try facing one fear a day and watch your fear muscle grow.

I hope this helps and please leave me, as always, you comments below.

Peace, passion and purpose…