3 Ways On How To Turn The Fear Of Failure Into An Asset

The power of the fear of failure (FOF) is immense. That’s why it’s remarkable that FOF is often seen through a negative perspective in 99% of the cases. So many people talk about failure like it’s the end of the world. It’s often because they’ve had some bad experiences with it in the past. What is seen as a failure is unique to each person. Maybe for some people their first business didn’t work out as they had planned to be or others may took an extra class as an undergraduate but it was a little too ‘much’ for them to handle. Because of those bad experiences these people almost start to get mentally ‘paralyzed’ with the thought of something that involves potential adversities. If the fear of failure has the capacity to make people stop doing things that involve potential risk then what can it do if we start looking at it through a different way, through a positive way? Most often we learn from our failures after we made a mistake. However the fear of failure, if used properly, gives us the opportunity to prevent these mistakes from happening and could help us be more efficient, achieve our goals faster and in general to live a better and happier life.

1. FOF inspires progression

Most people fear that they aren’t making progress in their lives. Some people still forget a lot of things like when they were young, others still don’t show up on time for their appointments. Others might procrastinate a lot and waste their time doing nothing. These are just a few examples that might seem harmless, but if this behavior is a returning phenomenon then this eventually leads to distressing thoughts like beating yourself up on why you never learn from your mistakes. You may begin to feel like you’re stuck in a vicious circle.
In this context you can see failure as unwanted senseless behavior or wasting time. Turn it around; what if you see missed achievements as failure. If you look at it like this then your fear of failure, missed achievements, should drive you to change your behavior. This causes to you to be more structured in your life and to do things more efficient, since you don’t want to miss out or postpone achievements, because that’s now your ‘fear’. You turned your fear into a drive on making progress in your life!

2. FOF inspires you to learn

Nowadays people often feel stressed out about the things they didn’t learn when they were younger or when they had ‘the time’. For example, you probably know a few people who sometimes talk about how they wished that they had learned how to play an instrument or a foreign language.
Failure in this context is not taking the opportunity to learn and to gain knowledge about new things that you’re curious about. You should take these people that regret passing on opportunities as an example on why you should never stop with learning. You don’t want to have the feeling that when you reflect back at some point in your life and think; ‘oh man, why didn’t I learn this when I had the chance, because it would be so useful right now.’ Use this type of FOF as your motivator to always seek for knowledge in the areas that you’re interested about and to not miss out on opportunities that have the potential to learn you something valuable.

3. FOF inspires you to never settle

The graveyard is the richest place on earth, because so many brilliant ideas are buried there with the same people that created them but never manifested their ideas. These people were too afraid to make that first step, to push through the obstacles or maybe they just thought that they didn’t have the skills to bring their ideas to fruition. But what if they could? What if they didn’t let their minds get influenced by the fear of failure in the sense of being ridiculed and laughed at or not being skilled enough?
Instead they could have also thought in a different way about their fears on failure. In the sense that they only had one shot in their life to make their dreams come true. This type of FOF would motivate them to pursue their idea relentlessly and to make it a success. If you decide to use the fear of failure according to this way then trust me, you’re whole perspective on life will change. You’ll take on more opportunities, do more exciting and new things and take more massive action to achieve your goals.

There has been for a long time misconceptions and misunderstandings about the power of the fear of failure. Of course, being afraid to fail is something we all have to deal with in our own ways. However, we all want to live a wonderful life in all the aspects of our lives; spiritually, financially and personally. FOF has the potential to help us achieve this life goal. Using the fear of failure to your advantage can not only make you happier and less scared, but it also gives you the feeling of having more control over your life. And feeling in control of our lives and not being restricted by fears or obstacles opens the door to the life you always wanted for yourself.