What is the Fear of Failure
Have you ever had that gut-wrenching fear of failure tie you in knots?
If you define success by the inner quality of feeling proud of your accomplishments, I believe everyone wants to be successful.
Many people who look outwardly successful have an emotional program of fear of failure running in the background of their lives.
For successful people this fear propels them forward. They do everything they can to be sure failure doesn’t catch up to them. The problem is they will make decisions based upon what they don’t want to happen. In other words, they are always looking in the rear view mirror attempting to outrun failure rather than looking ahead to the successful outcome of their actions.
The “rear view mirror” outlook is not a pleasant one. There is a vague, and sometimes profound feeling of discontent and anxiety that failure will overtake them. They “see” in their mind’s eye all they have accomplished laying in shards around their feet.
This is not happiness. There is no Joy in focusing on outrunning that which you are attempting to avoid. There will always be this dissatisfaction driving them to the next activity so they can feel secure, successful. The problem is that as long as the fear of failure is what drives them, there is no safety, no security.
Depending upon how strong the fear is, judgment can be clouded resulting in bad decisions made impulsively. This can make the fear a reality.
The Power of Focusing on Success
Runners are told to never look back and see who might be catching up with them. That second of changing their focus from the finish line slows them down enough where the person one-step behind could pull ahead.
Always focus ahead.
When you’re focusing on success you’re not imagining what you do which can go wrong. You’re focusing on those actions which will move you forward.
This is huge when you realize the role of your subconscious mind in failure or success.
Your subconscious mind doesn’t care whether you fail or succeed. That’s because it only does what it thinks you want it to do. If you are holding failure in your mind, that’s what you subconscious mind thinks you want. It will do everything it can to make that happen for you.
Ahh, but if you hold success in mind, then that is where your subconscious mind will lead you.
Align Your Subconscious Mind with Success
Let’s look at some ways to get your subconscious mind on board with what you want.
Define Success
You have to realize your subconscious mind is concrete. It doesn’t deal in abstracts. If you say you want to succeed and then move into fear by imagining all that can go wrong, then that is how your subconscious mind will define success. Not what you want!
Give your subconscious mind actual cues of what success means to you.
Vision Boards
This is easy and it’s fun. You may have heard about constructing a vision board. That’s where you cut out
pictures and words and put them on a poster board. The very process of looking for images and sayings of what you wants assists your subconscious mind in knowing what you want.
Post your vision board where you can see it. But, don’t just look at it. Imagine your are experiencing every one of those things on your vision board. If you put a boat on your board then feel yourself on it, the wind in your face, the warmth of the sun. Feel the joy!
Mental Images
These are mental vision boards. I suggest you have several. I’ll tell you why in a moment.
Construct a mental success image now. Yep, right now. It won’t take long.
What do you want to accomplish? See you accomplishing it. If you want to run and complete a marathon, see yourself crossing the finish line. Hear people cheering your success. Feel the sweat dripping down your body and the smile on your face. Feel the emotion of success. Revel in that emotion of success. Hear what people say to you about your success. Hear you congratulating your success.
Now form another mental success image. Perhaps it’s learning a craft. My example will be making jewelry. Bring to mind a piece you’d like to make. Feel the completed gorgeous piece in your hands. Hear people ohh and ahh when seeing it. Again, feel that satisfaction in your body.
Everyday bring to mind these mental images in all their sensory detail. Tell your subconscious mind, “This is success.” Then go into the image, feelings, sounds, tastes and smells.
Use these images any time fear of failure rears it’s ugly self-confidence draining ugly head. Tell that fear, “Liar. This is where I’m going.” Then bring those images to mind.
You can do this. Get rid of the rear view mirror and move forward to success!
I’m cheering you on.