Need your kind help...

First, stop comparing yourself to others. That is absolutely the worst way to motivate yourself. There will always be people better at something than you, whether it is physical sports, math, cooking, etc. etc.

There are 2 good methods for motivation:

-1- Compare yourself against your own past performance. You strive to beat your last score.

-2- Compare yourself against a fixed measure. For example, pass a test with a 90%.

As for fear of failure, the only way to get past that is to fail. Fail, fail, fail some more. This means intentionally testing your limits so that you will fail. When you fail enough, you will realize there is nothing to fear, that failure is for celebration, not fear.

I dont know if this will make you feel better but even if you are the best student ever in that university chance are you wont make much of a differance to the world. Maybe you will end up gaining just a little bit more money, best case scenario.

It's important to understand that you can control your thoughts. There is no one forcing you to think these thoughts of inadequacy and there is no machine pumping such negativity into your mind. Anytime you start thinking those thoughts, you also have the power to think another thought.

Change your mind, change your life. It's really that easy.

Try it.

Best wishes,

~royaltywriter~

royaltywriter wrote:It's important to understand that you can control your thoughts. There is no one forcing you to think these thoughts of inadequacy and there is no machine pumping such negativity into your mind. Anytime you start thinking those thoughts, you also have the power to think another thought.

Change your mind, change your life. It's really that easy.

Try it.

Best wishes,

~royaltywriter~

I myself have experienced what @learner is saying but it's really hard to control thoughts. It almost seems as if we don't have any control over them. I don't know if this is true but its how I feel at least.

I feel you on that. I thought the same thing until I became adamant about it. Once I began refusing to accept those negative thoughts as my reality the better off I was. Of course it's a battle and I still combat negative thoughts, but I keep at it.

I encourage you to keep at it. Whenever a negative thought comes, just speak the opposite and keep speaking the opposite until you are completely convinced of it.

Remember this, as a man thinks, so is he.

L learner wrote:Hi everyone:) I'm new here. It's nice to meet you all

I need your kind help in getting rid of my fear of failure. I'm a student and I'm facing this problem in my studies.
The main thing is, I'm not satisfied of my hard work, my efforts. I think I'll be among the average students at exam. I'm not that intelligent to reach the top position. I want to be at the top and I am always among the toppers but still I don't know why these thoughts are always bombarded in my mind while studying and during exam. I'm really worried as this is affecting my performance and I don't want to be a victim of this fear. Please need your kind guidance.
Thanks.

Can you write down here exactly what will happen if you really fail for your exams?
And try to be honest as possible.

Thoughts are too quick, so therefore write it down.

cainbreck wrote:I myself have experienced what @learner is saying but it's really hard to control thoughts. It almost seems as if we don't have any control over them. I don't know if this is true but its how I feel at least.

Why should you control your thoughts? How is that possible? I guess it isn't.
You better can watch your thoughts, and then "see" if they are true or a lie.
It's all about believing. Do you believe what you are thinking? That believe will be truth in your life.
You always are acting to what you believe.
Your feelings will then react on it. If it feels okay, then possible your thought is save to believe.
If it isn't feel right, then introspect why you are believing your thought.

If your father is telling you:

I love you.

Do you believe it? How do you feel?
Or do you think it's a lie? How does that feel?

Controlling your thoughts is a matter of simply deciding what you think. When a person is in control of something they are the decision maker. So, why not decide (control) what you want to think?

We decide the kind of reality that we want to live, the reality does not choose us. It's the same with our thinking, there are messages and ways of thinking that media and people try to impose on us, but at the end of the day, it is up to us to control what thought will take a foothold in our lives.

We are not puppets on strings, we are human beings; the only species that has the ability to choose and to control. So why not choose what you think about?

~royaltywriter~

"Controlling" I see, is trying to "hold" something.
THoughts are coming and fly away. I learned myself not to "hold" or "catch" thoughts, but to look at them. And then decide if I want to believe a thought or not.

Of course, I am the only one who chooses my thoughts, but they are rooted in something.
So I always try to look further, where they are coming from.

"I failed my way to success." Thomas Edison

I honestly feel like we are saying the same thing.... We are talking about deciding what you will allow to accept as true or not true.

Whether a person looks, holds, or catches thoughts, at the end of the day, we still have the power to control what we think.

The only person you can control is yourself. It is not easy, but if you cannot control yourself, you can't expect to be able to control anything or anyone else to your desire. Fear of failure is part of all of us. It can go two ways, and that is entirely up to you. And I know it takes time to allow this to sink in as I was a performing musician and have a very good idea about failure. Once I decided this was no longer going to be the issue, I became a marital artist, a registered nurse, a real estate investor, a digital marketer and a self-esteem coach. It took several years, but let me tell you, it was worth the effort. Fear of failure is what prevents most people from taking any meaningful action. Instead, they create their own problems (excuses) to which they then invent solutions to make themselves think they are very busy to change anything.
Fear of failure also has a very positive side. It means you are somehow about to get out of your comfort zone. Getting out of your comfort zone is exactly what helps you grow. If you feel the fear often, that just means your comfort zone is very narrow and needs to expand again. Failure is the most valuable way to learn. I started nursing school after being a musician for 30 years, with no scientific basis, let alone in English as English is not my first language. So I replaced my 9-hour daily practice of the violin with 9-hour daily reading sessions. I read the Anatomy and Physiology textbook, the Chemistry, Psychology, and Microbiology books twice from cover to cover before I even started the classes. I aced all testes with scores above 95%, frequently above anyone else in the class (100%). Well, guess what: real life did not care about my test scores. It cared about experience. And experience took time to acquire at the job, took many failures, lots of hurt pride, until I finally felt forced to switch my mindset to stop being ashamed of failure, but to rather learn from it and move on. And that's when everything changed for me dramatically. It is not true that you cannot control you thoughts. Yes you can. Simply replace a destructive thought with a constructive one. A negative with a positive. Right at that moment when you deem it hard, impossible, etc, is exactly when you should do it. Remember to always acknowledge your fear or anger first, as these emotions are valid. But once you acknowledge them, change your thought process and move on. I promise you it will work if you try enough times. And "enough" is different for everyone, but the point is to try and do it as many times as it takes in order to develop that ability. I used to be an angry, temperamental, impatient and demanding person of myself and of others. If I could change, you can!

L Learner, remember also that - as referred to above by AlexD - failure isn't generally conflated with "experience" but how can anyone gain experience without encountering "failure" at some point. You could easily say that the benefits of experience are the same as the benefits of failure.

The difference is with having a goal and staying focused on it. So long as that's where you are with something you're trying to achieve then failure is only a step along the road to ultimate success.