‘You Are Setting Yourself Up To Fail!’
Suppose you listened to that thought. How would you feel if you believed it was true? What would you stop doing? What would you compromise on to ensure you didn't feel this way?
I was visualising what my creative success would look like. I imagined an established gallery filled with my abstract paintings. It is the private view and the exhibition is a sell-out with buyers falling in love with my work. Everyone is happy and smiling. I am confident in talking to people about my creations and it all feels amazing.
And then... that thought. You are setting yourself up to fail!
I instantly came back down to earth with a bump and felt deflated. My brain hijacking those feel-good feelings, retreating into fear mode again and self-doubting the direction I had chosen my art to go in.
Abstract Art by Angela Terris
What is the Fear of Failure?
It is the core belief that you are inadequate, not as smart or talented as others. You may be successful but feel fraudulent outwardly wearing a mask of success, yet inside you feel like an imposter.
To manage this you may try to overcompensate by working extra diligently or go the other way and avoid doing the task altogether. Other coping mechanisms are to self-sabotage your efforts, procrastinate or half-heartedly engage in the task, all to make sure that those feelings of failure don't surface.
How I said 'No' to Fear of Failure.
The first thing I did was to challenge that thought by remembering success means something different to everyone. I considered where I am right now compared to four years ago.
Back then I was a digital artist and the thought of free-hand painting filled me with terror. Without the delete/undo button, the zoom in and zoom out, the dread of making a mistake or messing up kept me tied to that computer and no closer to my childhood dreams of becoming a fine artist.
Now, I prefer painting free-hand to digital. I love the physicalness of it, the getting messy, flowing with happy mistakes and my unhindered self-expression.
By being aware of my unhelpful thinking it enabled me to face my demons, putting things into a more helpful perspective. Failure is subjective, and even if I did fail, it's not a failure compared to my four years ago self.
My future self will look back to this time and thank my present self for having the courage to keep practising and dreaming. As all is progression, all is a development and all is ok.
How to Overcome Fear of Failure:
Increase your levels of success by identifying areas of improvement which will help build your skills and confidence.
Be realistic in your self-valuation of success by changing your perception of what success means to you and not compared to others.
Excepting the unchangeable limitations in your abilities while still feeling that you do have value. You may have achievement elsewhere but are discounting its relevance.
Set realistic long term goals that you can achieve.
Stop procrastinating, how can you build self-efficiency if you avoid doing things.
Stop sitting on the fence, either do it or let go of it, as doing it half-heartedly doesn't lead to fulfilment.
Stop overgeneralising. Sometimes we fail and sometimes we succeed. Sometimes parts of it have failed whilst on the whole, it worked out ok.
Make sure you recognise your achievements as people are very good at only focusing on what has gone wrong.
Learning Points
Your brain is only trying to protect you from a perceived potential threat. It's doing its job, yet sometimes it can be overzealous and keep you in your comfort zone and too safe.
Be your cheerleader as constantly pulling yourself down and putting obstacles in your way makes life so much harder.
You must accept you have self-worth and value whether you feel you have status, achievement or beauty or not. Its all subjective anyway and what you are doing is giving the evaluation of who you are to an external force who may not be the best qualified to do this.
Self-coaching Questions:
Where do you avoid situations or task that you fear may lead to failure?
Where do you overcompensate by putting in too much effort to ensure that you succeed but it may impact on other areas of your life, relationships and wellbeing?
Where do you surrender to the fear of failure thought, believing it is 100% true and do nothing to challenge it?
What would you do if you had the certainty you couldn't fail?
Now you have looked at things more objectively, what are you going to do? Are you going to continue to let imaginery fears rule your life or are you going to say yes to your next adventure.