I Can't Do That

How many times have you heard that from people.  Maybe it is something that you say yourself.  We all do – each of us has a different threshold for what we will tackle and what we won’t.  But for many – fear of failure is what actually drives this response.  For many successful people though – it is being able to look at that fear – dissect it and take action to overcome it that makes them different.

The older we get it seems the less risks we are willing to take.  Our conditioning over the years tends to see too many of the risks and make us become very conservative.  This can be to the point that we won’t take any risks to succeed at all.  Only when we are too uncomfortable being the way we are – will we take a risk to change it.

Look at children – especially when they are learning to walk.  They actually fail so many times before they finally get how to walk.  Their failures don’t stop them from wanting to be like everyone else and to be able to walk – they don’t think of being embarrassed and they fail their way to success.  Every time they stumble – they learn from that mistake and put themselves on the path to the same destination – just with a slightly different way of getting there.

Successful people essentially fail their way to success as well.  Each time they come across a failure, they don’t take it personally.  The take a look at it – dissect, look at it from different angles, compare it to other successes and failures and set a slightly different course.  Unsuccessful people though – take their first few failures personally.  They become emotionally attached to the idea that they are a failure and either just run away from the problem or just give up completely.

So – how can you start to tackle the fear of failure when it starts to get a hold of you?

Take Action!  Sound familiar.  Well – it should – it is the first way to know if you will succeed or fail.

Don’t run away.  If at first you don’t succeed – don’t take it personally.  Look at it for what it is.  It is a gift early in the piece so that you can look at your actions to that point and review how you are trying to get to your goal.  Now you get to try again – this time eliminating the reasons for the first non-success.

Be Persistent!  Yes – we all know – if at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.  But what they forget to say is – keep working out why it is failing and do things a little differently.  Seek knowledge and skills from others to help you learn from your mistakes.

I will be writing some longer articles over the coming months about taking action on a variety of subjects – so stay tuned for my weekly newsletter coming out soon.  It will have all sorts of articles that you may get some benefit from.

To you in success.

Cheers

Teresa