The Significance Of Failure Vs The Fear Of Failure

Image by Adrian Malec from Pixabay

The fear of failure is the number one reason people are unhappy with their lives, because they didn’t even give themselves the chance the fail. When you want to start a new journey in life, but you are so afraid it will fail so you don’t even pursue it. You are hindering yourself tremendously from any potential growth. After all, that is what growth is all about–learning from the mistakes you make and moving strategically going forward. The motto for She Informs is “With every experience…comes growth!”, and without experience and countless amounts of failure…I wouldn’t have learned so much about myself and probably would never have started my blog in the first place.

“Failure is not the opposite of success, it’s part of success. When you realize that, you free yourself from the fear of failure. In life, failure is inevitable. And the best leaders learn from their failure.”

-Arianna Huffington

We cannot let others cloud our judgment.

I know a lot of people who tend to care too much about what others think and that is one of the reasons we are so scared to fail. Specifically, if you grew up in a “failure is not an option” household. It puts an overwhelming amount of pressure on you that in some circumstances, can lead to failure without you even knowing it. One thing I’ve realized is that if we continue to live our lives based on what other people think or how they tell us to live our lives, it usually results in unhappiness or maybe even depression.

Sometimes when I’ve experienced failure, I used to feel embarrassed to tell anyone. It’s usually not until later that I’ve realized and had time to reflect on everything I’ve taken from it and use it as a learning lesson. When we see our failures as learning lessons, we will no longer have a problem with failure.

“Your twenties will produce more failure than you’ll choose to remember. The key is: when you fail, don’t begin calling yourself a failure.”

-Paul Agone

According to Paul Agone, failing means you’re simply finding a more profound way to be successful. That sentence alone is the reason I chose to take control of my life no matter what anyone thinks. If I fail not only is it on me, but I take every setback as a learning lesson for the next step to success. It’s better to fail while trying than to not try at all. If someone tells you “Women can’t do that” or “Men aren’t supposed to do that”, prove them wrong! Even if things don’t always work out, people will look up to you and be inspired by you, because you did what they couldn’t.

Check out my post on double standards, so we can kill the narrative!

Just because you fail at it, doesn’t mean it’s not for you.

When something doesn’t go as planned, how do we decide to take that failure and move strategically? To keep going, keep attempting, or accept the fact that it was not meant for us and move on? For me, I like to look at the reason that caused the failure because I know something wasn’t meant for me. In some instances, distractions might come up that can lead to failure. In other instances, your heart just might not be in it, which can also lead to failure. It’s up to you to determine the root and act on it. If you feel you fail at something because you’re bad at it, work on perfecting it if it is something you so truly want. Cooking, sewing, hair, painting, singing, writing papers, whatever it is, there’s someone out there who’s well versed in it. Find what you want to do and perfect your craft. So far, I’ve learned that education is one of the most powerful tools, and in this day and age, it’s right at our fingertips. Failure is our biggest teacher.

Letting the fear of failure stop you from your wildest dreams.

My friend was recently telling me how she wanted to study abroad, in London. She also told me she didn’t even know if school was the right thing for her. My only advice was that you never truly know unless you try. If and when you try, if you fail, you cannot say you did not at least try because you never know where it might’ve taken you. After all, I think that is the ultimate failure; letting the potential of failure stop you from the things you truly want to pursue in life. We sometimes find ourselves so afraid of what “might” happen, that we never let ourselves find out what “will” happen. Sadly, I believe that is why most people do not chase their dreams or become who they truly want to be as a whole.

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