by AlexD » Wed Nov 16, 2016 6:17 pm
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!