CLIMB: A Recipe for a Successful Life

Fear of Failure

This fear is tied to our concerns regarding, what if things don't work out the way we hoped or intended it to?  The other part of this fear is tied to what we believe people will think, say, or believe about us.  How will people see me?  What will they say about me?  Fear of Failure is tied to our beliefs about failure, and may go back to the messages we received as children, about what it means to fail.

Here is the story of a gentleman who exemplifies failure.  He failed twice in business.  He lost the legislative race in 1831.  He was elected to the state legislature in 1834 but in 1838 he was defeated for speaker.  In 1840 he was defeated for election and in 1844 he lost his congressional seat.  In 1846, he won a seat in Congress and then lost it in 1848.  He lost in the Senate in 1855, lost for Vice President in 1856, lost again in the Senate in 1858.  But in 1860 he was elected President of the United States of America.  Who was this gentleman?  One of the most beloved Presidents of the United States of America, Abraham Lincoln, know only for his successes.

When we have Fears of Failure, we need to reframe our idea of failure.  Without failure we would never learn and/or grow.  As toddlers, when we were learning to walk, if we had stopped trying every time we fell, we wouldn't be walking today!  Failure helps to build our character.  If things always go our way, then we would never learn how to do things differently.  You would never become a good sailor if you only sailed in calm seas.  Embrace failure as a way of improving who you are and where you are going.  Ask yourself, "What can I learn from this?"  Find the learning, incorporate it into your life and move on!

When we focus our control outwardly, wondering what people will think, say, or believe about us if we fail, we take the power from ourselves and give it to others.  Instead, our control needs to come from within, from our values and spiritual beliefs.  When our convictions are strong, we do what we need to do, and leave the rest to God.  The more we practice doing the things we need to do, and living our purpose and truth, the stronger our courage will become.

I have heard it said, "When you are down to nothing, God is up to something."  Faith allows us to do amazing things, despite our fears.  You may ask, "What is this 'faith' thing that she's talking about?"  So I looked up the dictionary's definition of "faith," and its definition included, "Confident belief or trust in a person, idea, or thing," and "belief that does not rest on logical proof or material evidence."  Faith comes from having confident belief and trust.  But how does one gain confident belief and trust in a person, idea, or thing?  We do so by learning more about that person, idea, or thing.  Through diligent study, investigation, spending lots of time with whatever "it" is, we begin to have confident belief and trust, and therefore faith.  Courage is not the absence of fear, but the ability to act despite our fears, based on our beliefs.