We all know the old idiom:
“If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again!”
But many of us never get to embrace this sage advice because we are too fearful of failing.
‘Success’ is overhyped as the ultimate goal that we humans are expected to pursue in life.
We are taught to admire, respect, honour and kow tow to those who are perceived to be successful. On the other hand people who are perceived as failures are often looked down upon, disrespected and disregarded.
It’s no wonder then that we grow up with an inbred fear of failure.
The concept of success
The problem, of course, is the way we choose to define success. In the materialistic world most of us find ourselves in today, success is commonly equated with monetary wealth, physical possessions and superficial beauty.
In life coaching we help people to appreciate the power of equating ‘success’ with internal happiness and contentment and not with some materially driven, external benchmark.
Still, no matter how you choose to define what success means to you, achieving it is what is important. And if you spend your waking hours in fear that the opposite may come to pass, then you are limiting your ability to realise your true potential.
Fear of failure vs desire for success
Fear of failure is perhaps the number one thing that obstructs people from achieving what they want from life.
And the most common symptom that fear of failure manifests is procrastination; holding back, delaying or putting off important decisions and actions.
If you recognise the procrastinator in you, imagine a personal scale. On the one side of the scale is your Desire for success. On the other is your fear of failure. As long as the fear outweighs the desire success will remain elusive.
Redefining failure
One effective way to diminish your fear of failure is by redefining what this means so that it takes on less importance.
We all know that life is a journey. All journeys have their ups and downs, straight sections and bends. We relish the differences because they make the journey interesting and more eventful but we don’t look at the ups and straight sections as successes and the downs and bends as failures. They are just different experiences we encounter on the journey.
Likewise, times when we seem further away from achieving what we desire are not failures, they are merely challenges that make the eventual successes more meaningful.
Bumps in the road
So ‘failure’ is not failure. It is merely a bump in the road that distracts us temporarily and adds to the excitement of the journey and the process of reaching our destination.
Once you can programme your mind to accept this it should be far easier to stop procrastinating and start doing. After all, that’s where the excitement lies – in the doing!
Famous people who were ‘failures’
If you need a bit more motivation to help you on your way consider the following famous people, that most would consider huge successes. They all experienced times in their life where they could be described as having failed … but they didn’t let that deter them. Their desire for success simply outweighed their fear of a few bumps in the road along the way!
Oprah Winfrey
One of the richest and most iconic women in the world was once fired from her job as a TV reporter due to claims that she was “unfit for television”!
Winston Churchill
He failed his sixth form education and faced defeat in every election for public office in every election in which he ran, before he became Prime Minister of the UK at age 62.
Marilyn Monroe
Though she died at an early age she was hugely successful. It’s hard to believe that she was once told by modelling agents that she would have more success as a secretary!
Henry Ford
Ford endured bankruptcy on five occasions before he became the man we so admire today.
Vincent van Gogh
This master painter only ever sold one painting, to a friend and for a paltry sum. At one point he had to endure starvation in order to complete his over 800 known works.
Ludwig von Beethoven
His teacher once labelled him a ‘hopeless composer’.
Walt Disney
Walt was fired for lack of ideas by a newspaper editor. He also went bankrupt a number of times before he completed Disneyland.
Soichiro Honda
Honda is today a billion-dollar automotive giant. The engineer, Soichiro Honda, after whom the company is named, started making scooters in his personal garage after failing to land a job with, now competitor, Toyota.
Charles Darwin
This ‘father of the theory of evolution’ was told by his own father, “You care for nothing but shooting, dogs, and rat catching.”
Lady Gaga
This superstar diva dropped out of the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University to follow her passion in music. She joined major label Def Jam Recordings but had to start all over again after being let go just three months after signing.
Steven Spielberg
He applied, on three occasions, to the California School of Theatre, Film and Television – and was rejected each time.
Albert Einstein
The man we know today as a genius, did not speak until he was four years old and did not read until he was seven. He was described by his teacher as “mentally slow, unsociable and adrift forever in his foolish dreams.”
Elvis Presley
This blockbuster artist was told by his manager in 1954, “You ain’t goin’ nowhere, son. You ought to go back to drivin’ a truck.”
Fred Astaire
In 1933 the testing director of MGM wrote the following about him: “Can’t act! Slightly bald! Can dance a little!”
J K Rowling
This lady, so well known for the hugely popular Harry Potter series, is now one of the richest women in the world. When she started out writing, was almost penniless, dependent on welfare grants, severely depressed, and divorced.
Thomas Edison
Edison was told by his teachers that he was “too stupid to learn anything.” He was fired for lack of productivity in his first two jobs. His success in inventing the light bulb came only after at least 1,000 unsuccessful attempts.
Bill Gates
Gates dropped out of Harvard and started a business called Traf-O-Data which failed, before Microsoft was conceived.
The moral of the story
All this goes to show that failure, rather than something to be feared, is part and parcel of the journey to become successful.
Regard it as something to be embraced, not shunned!
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