Let’s talk about failure.
There’s all this talk about the benefits of failing lately.
“Fail early and fail often!” We hear.
But how do we do that if we are afraid to start?
What are you really afraid of when you are afraid to fail? Not achieving whatever it is you want to achieve! Perhaps it is getting a job that we want, creating something new, or being able to run a marathon. If you allow your fear to paralyze you into inaction, you will end up with the exact same result as if you tried and failed- nothing! You won’t get the job, create that amazing thing or finish the marathon. So what have you lost? Maybe a little bit of time where you could have been watching Survivor. But chances are that you are a little closer to that job, that you learned something in your creative endeavor, or that you are a little healthier than when you started training for that marathon.
What if you don’t fail? If your fear doesn’t win out in this struggle, you may end up achieving your goal. You may actually end up with that job, or awesome clay house or the satisfaction of knowing you can run 26.2 miles.
So fear of failure will lead to inaction. Inaction produces zero results. Getting beyond failure (or ignoring it altogether) might produce the results that you want. It might not. But you will end up in an even better place from having learned something from your failure that if you had done nothing at all.
Doing nothing puts you in the same place as you imagine your failure will. Inaction is like predetermined failure.
Think about one thing that you have been putting off.
Now consider why you have been putting it off.
Imagine the worst thing that could happen.
Is it really that bad?