Why is failure so scary?
I'm finding in my entrepreneurial journey that being afraid to fail causes me to become paralyzed with inaction. At first I thought this had to be some intrinsic fear of appearing unintelligent (which plagued me as a child) but in deeper introspection, I'm realizing I'm actually just being indecisive and living in a realm of confusion ("I don't know how to do this" or "I don't know which way will work the best....I better think about it more"). While this may seem smart - do your research and make the best decision you can - what happens to you if you live in a state of Research and never actually move forward? I've noticed on this latest journey that I will put off decisions in order to do "more research" when deep down I already know what I want to do. In conversations this comes out as "I'm thinking about taking this step." In reality, I know what I want to do, I've already put some plans in place to do it, but I fear coming out and saying it decisively...why? Fear of "getting it wrong." This additional research phase just puts me farther behind and causes me to be inefficient by wasting time "trying to decide." I'm basically just NOT taking action.
Most recently this has played out in launching a new coaching program--a coaching program that my target audience has asked for and wants, but that I keep putting off because I "don't quite have the logistics worked out yet." Whatever, self. <insert eye roll> The truth is that I continue to be indecisive by not picking a delivery method, trying it out and risking that it fails. So basically for almost a year I've been failing in advance and never giving myself the opportunity to succeed.
Wait, what?
Yes. I'm sabotaging my own success by living in this "fear of failure" and "indecision" zone. I've been "trying to complete" this program for the better part of the last year but something always gets in the way of completing it or launching it. The good news is that I'm on to my brain now and see what it's doing. I now know this trickery and can start taking action to overcome it. Because guess what. I'm going to fail regardless. Failure is a part of success. Failure when you attempt to do something is also what we call "practice."
I recently finished a book by Tom Sterner called The Practicing Mind: Developing Focus and Discipline in Your Life. I love the opening quote of the first chapter:
Everything in life worth achieving requires practice. In fact, life itself is nothing more than one long practice session, an endless effort of refining our motions. When the proper mechanics of practice are understood, the task of learning something new becomes a stress-free experience of joy and calmness, a process which settles all areas in your life and promotes proper perspective on all of life’s difficulties.
This quote takes the fear and confusion and anxiety right out of me.
In order to go anywhere or do anything new, I must practice. That is so obvious when it comes to playing an instrument or snowboarding for the first time. Most of us are not prodigies and so when we try to play piano the first time....we fail. Big time. And why do you think most of my skier friends who try snowboarding quickly go back to skiing? Because the learning curve is great and they get tired of failing and falling down and they just stop practicing. This makes so much sense for these types of activities but why does it seem so difficult to comprehend when applied to starting a business or implementing a marketing campaign or launching a new service line or even giving up alcohol or overeating? In order to grow or learn anything new, we must make attempts, fail, figure out what we did that didn't work, readjust our tactics, and try again. That's how we grow and get better, right? Knowing this and applying it to those sticky and difficult situations takes so much stress out of the situation.
Failure just means you didn't reach your goal. We develop fear about failure because we associate a thought about what that failure means. What that failure means about us.
In my case, I make failure mean that I'm not good enough and not worthy of whatever it is I want. Using this thought process......why would I ever want to try anything new?!?!?! The risks are just too great. So I might as well be a secret failure by not even trying and that way I can pretend to be good enough.
Hmmmmm.......
OR
I can choose to make a failure mean that I just didn't meet my goal and need to tweak something and keep practicing.
Here's a business blunder I'll share as an example. Earlier in the year I started running a series of Facebook ads to generate an audience and general client interest. By "earlier" I mean end of April 2019. And I kinda just let them do their thing and assumed the site would give me a shout out if I had a lead and then tuned out to wait for the smoke signal. Well lo and behold, in August of 2019 I stumbled upon an area of the ads I hadn't seen before and noticed it said I had 30 ads! Wait. Where were the smoke signals!?!? I immediately tried to download the information for these mysterious 30 people that had appeared and discovered that you can't download lead information if it's more than 90 days old - which was 10 of my 30 leads. A full one third of my leads I was not able to contact. Doh! That was a big failure for my business! But instead of making it mean that I was an idiot, I made it into a learning moment for my business processes so that I could capture the remaining leads that come in and respond to them in a timely fashion...and potentially get some clients out of that interaction which is the whole idea.
I like how Sterner sees it when he writes, "When you shift your goal form the product you are trying to achieve to the process of achieving it, a wonderful phenomenon occurs: all pressure drops away." This is so true of this business blunder I made. If I had been entirely focused on the fact that I'd screwed up and missed 10 leads, I would have had an entirely different response and outcome from that blunder. I may have closed up my business and taken a job I hated to live a miserable life ever more. But instead I said to myself, without judgment, "Oh well, that's a bummer but now I know," and continued on my merry way. Sterner continues:
"Remember, judgment redirects and wastes our energy. One could argue that we must judge the outcome of each attempt to make a decision about how to proceed, but this is not true. Judgment brings a sense of right or wrong, good or bad with it. What we are doing here is objectively observing and analyzing the outcome of each attempt. This observation serves only to direct our next effort. It is amazing how everything changes when we use this way of thinking to approach any new activity. For one thing, we become patient with ourselves. We are not in a hurry to get to some predetermined point. Our goal is to stay in this process and to direct our energy into whatever activity we are choosing at the present. Every second that we achieve this, we fulfill our goal. This process brings us inner peace and a wonderful sense of mastery and self-confidence.”
I like where this last quote takes me. It reminds me that every step I take, whether it works or it doesn't, is part of my journey toward my goal. When I stop judging my failures, I have room in my head to recognize how each one of them led me to the next success.
I probably quote these way too often but they've had a big impact on my life so I'll leave you this week with three of my favorite Thomas Edison quotes (he invented the light bulb...but not on his first try):
"I haven't failed -- I've just found 10,000 that won't work."
“Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.”
“Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is to try just one more time.”
Let's not give up, but instead, keep on practicing and failing until we get it right.
As always, if you could use another set of eyes on your thoughts, don't hesitate to sign up for a 30-minute consultation on my Services page. Let's have a phone call and see if coaching is right for you. While you're at it, please take a second to sign up for my newsletter which will be launching this year. In it I will answer coaching questions that have been submitted and highlight blog posts from the page.
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