Overcoming My Fear of Failure

When you read the words “fear of failure”, what do you begin to think about? What images come to mind? What exactly do we fear when we have a fear of failure?

For me, fear of failure was always one big... blob. A weighty, nebulous, obscure, murky, clump of fear.

I never knew what lay beneath it. Despite having my own business and operating as an independent contractor/consultant for almost 10 years, I could never shake it. It would haunt me when a contract ended unexpectedly or when it took me longer than I thought it would to get a new gig. I never had to battle it for too long though as I’d built up a solid reputation in my field so new work was never too far afield.

If you asked me then, I would’ve said I was lucky to not have to face that fear for too long. Now, I’m not so sure.

When I left to start my coaching business, I came face to face with my fear of failure and there was no getting away from it this time. Yes, I’m still self-employed but it’s a new industry and I’m pretty much starting all over again, building my contacts, clients and reputation. So when the fear hit this time, it hit pretty hard.

The thing about fear is that when you try to avoid it or ignore it, it digs in like a younger sibling – following you around, calling your name, tapping you, poking you, insisting that you pay attention and sneaking up on you when you think you’ve found a solo moment of quiet.

So what did I do? Obviously, I tried to avoid it. I thought I could just think positive, keep speed walking by it with my eyes averted. Eventually, I realized I had to hit the pause button on this strategy and ask myself some questions.

What if I did fail? What did that mean?

Was I going to end up homeless and hungry? No. I’m fortunate to be living in the city where I was born and raised and to have family and friends here who would provide me with shelter and food if I was to go bankrupt.

Ok, so then was it pride? Was I afraid of the stigma of telling people I’d failed or that I’d gone bankrupt? Nope, turns out that didn’t bother me at all.

Those were the big two that usually seem to haunt people so if neither was an issue for me then what was I actually afraid of? What was I afraid to face should I fail?

Letting people down: I am a recovering perfectionist, over-achiever and people pleaser.

I was afraid of not living up to others’ expectations of me: to be successful, dependable, responsible, and, last, but not least, a good person (side note for another blog post: what exactly is/makes a good person?).

I had to figure out what lay hidden behind and beneath my very personal “fear of failure”. I could never shake it because I never knew what I was truly afraid of if I failed, what consequences I was scared of confronting. By getting specific, by identifying and naming my own very real monsters in the closet, I could then work through them.

I have always been thought of as dependable and responsible – the person no one has to worry about, whether personally or professionally; the one people turn to for help and for solutions to problems. What would it mean if I couldn’t meet my obligations? Who would I be if I wasn’t the “dependable and responsible” one any longer? What if people weren’t happy with me? Achievement has always led to positive attention, approval and what seemed like acceptance, however precarious it felt in my mind. So what would failure mean?

As is usual for most of us when we are afraid, it isn’t just any old fear, but THE MOTHER OF ALL FEARS – we don’t just fear, we catastrophize. My concerns weren’t about being in debt; they were about having no ability to pay for rent, debt or taxes.

Will that happen? Maybe. I have to accept that reality – all entrepreneurs do. But then what? I would certainly not be the first, nor the only, nor the last person to go bankrupt if it were to happen. I had to remind myself that, in fact, enough people declare bankruptcy that THERE IS A PROCESS FOR IT.

In this case, the others I worried about letting down included the credit card company, the property management company of my apartment and the Canada Revenue Agency. The property management company would survive. The credit card company would definitely survive. No one has to worry about the CRA surviving.

Would my life get more challenging? Yes. But life would continue because it always does (even if it’s not necessarily mine). All things change and continue to move on. We have no choice in this and yet we insist on fighting the inevitable.

And that includes me. I could let myself continue to be trapped by the expectations others have of me, real or imagined; by the cultural myths of what it means to be a “good person”; and by the pursuit of perfectionism in the mistaken belief that this would make me “good enough”. Or I could CHOOSE to be wonderfully, nervously, bravely, imperfectly human and fully me.