Have you ever faced rejection and felt like life will never get any better? Felt like your life has come to a dead end, especially now that you have proved your haters right? In this blog, I am discussing 9 controversial ways to overcome your fear of failure and get back to your goals.
Humans have evolved to fear challenging and threatening tasks. This is why whenever you proceed to work on challenging tasks, you develop a fear of failure and tend to give up.
Perhaps this is why people who overcome a fear of failure appear so special. You can read numerous success stories yet only feel deeply inspired when you read one rags-to-riches story. This is because deep down we know how difficult it is to accept failures and put them behind only to work again.
But the question is, what are the strategies that such people use to crush their fear of failure? In this blog, I answer that question with a pinch of controversies. Let’s go!
Fear of Failure: 8 Controversial Ways to Crush it in Your Life
The internet is flooded with articles that regurgitate and share the same ways to overcome the fear of failure again and again. So, I did the leg work for you and found 9 controversial ways to crush your fear of failure and restart your process.
1. Embrace Rejection
More often than not, the fear of failure arises when you sense rejection from miles away. This stands true even in your professional and personal life. When you reframe rejection as a valuable experience and not a setback, you pave your way to growth.
Most people fail to realize this but rejection is not a dead end, rather it’s a vital part of success. It is your stepping stone to getting closer to success and actually enjoying its sweetness. So. instead of letting rejection limit your progress, accept it as a tool for improvement.
This mindset shift will make you proactive in approaching failure and help you seek opportunities that may result in rejection. In the long run, it will desensitize you to the fear of failure and make you immune to the aftereffects of rejection.
So, the next time you get rejected, sulk for a bit if you want but do not hold onto the feeling of remorse.
This will ensure that the rejection does not affect your growth but becomes a feedback loop for your improvement.
This will also nurture a sense of curiosity and adaptability in you which is essential for navigating your uncertain lives.
2. Publicly Share Your Failures
It’s a common belief that you must not share your plan with others because not everyone is your friend. Keeping that in mind, publicly sharing your failures sounds insane. But wait till you hear why it works wonders.
When you publicly share your failures, you nurture transparency and authenticity in yourself. This is what I have been doing since Day 1 of growing this blog. My social media platforms have been my pedestal to share all my highs and lows and also grow a community of fellow writers on all my three channels: Instagram, LinkedIn, and YouTube.
Most importantly, when you openly discuss your mistakes and defeats, you break the stigma around failure. It shows people that failure is not unique to a person, rather it’s universal.
Most people try to conceal their failures but when you accept them openly, you are making yourself vulnerable which is an essential tool for personal growth.
When you keep your failure stories to yourself, you are isolating yourself which will compel you to hide your shortcomings.
But, when you declare your failure out in the open, you are changing the narrative from shame to strength. This gradually starts to contribute to a cultural shift where more and more people start to normalize and encourage those who have faced rejection.
This is exactly what happens to me as I share my story with my community. I receive so many uplifting messages and supportive stories from aspiring writers that it only pushes me to open up more through my content.
3. Set Extreme Goals
While most people, including me, often suggest keeping your goals realistic, sometimes setting extreme goals does more good.
When you set extreme goals, you are making yourself push your boundaries, creating discomfort for yourself. Believe it or not, It helps you confront your deepest and darkest fears.
When you purposely expose yourself to new challenges and intimidating objectives, you will amplify your fear. There can be two results of this process. It will either completely hinder your growth or help you achieve unparalleled growth.
This also nurtures a mindset where you start to believe that failure is a natural consequence of achieving extraordinary achievements. When you embrace failure and set intimidating goals for yourself, you will most probably watch yourself develop more resilience and a high tolerance for uncertainty.
You can also use my Goal Setting Template to help you with the process.
4. Deliberately Seek Failure
It’s human nature to seek security and comfort but so is our nature to avoid the fear of failure. If you push yourselves out of your comfort zone and actively start creating opportunities to seek failure, you will place yourself in the hands of uncertainty.
While it will be painful in the beginning, it will weaken your fear with time. By proactively engaging with situations that have a high risk of failure, you will expand your boundaries and shift into cultivating a positive mindset.
Whenever you fail a random writing contest that you participated in without any preparation, you will view it as a lesson on what you shouldn’t be doing in the contests rather than crying because you failed a test.
When you deliberately seek failure, you become more adaptable to different obstacles.
You will gradually start to view failures more as valuable first-hand lessons and less as a source of discouragement. This helps you to escape the negative loop and transform both your personal and professional lives.
5. Celebrate Your Mistakes
Growth and healing never follow a linear path. It means that if you succeed in two consecutive tasks, there will be chances that you will fail in 3 consecutive tasks. Instead of looking at failures with hatred and shame, celebrate them.
Celebrating your mistakes and failures sounds bizarre, I know but it will modify your relationship with failure.
This doesn’t mean that you have to throw a full-on party for your friends and family members but giving yourself treats that you would only do when you succeed.
When you give yourself a supportive environment to make mistakes, you are more likely to learn from them. This way, whenever you face failure, you will easily rebound and work on things you are passionate about.
It’s a way of accepting and acknowledging your efforts during tough times. It will help you nurture a mindset where you will be open to exploration and not be afraid of uncertainties that come along your way.
6. Embrace the Worst-Case Scenario
You must have heard the famous proverb ‘Wish for the best, prepare for the worst.’ This is the inspiration behind the strategy – embrace the worst-case scenario.
This is a strategy that I often use to calm myself down. When I am mentally and physically prepared for different possibilities, I feel much better.
Imagining all the possible results of a situation will help you get control over the situation and prepare you to accept potential rejection. When you bring your fears out in the open, it slowly starts to lose its power.
As with any other strategy, it takes time to build and master this strategy. However, once you learn to master it, you will be able to confront your deepest anxieties about a situation beforehand. Needless to say, it will make you resilient to the possible results.
7. Challenge traditional definitions of success
If you take a step back and notice the root cause of your fear of failure, you will realize that oftentimes, it is rooted in societal expectations.
When you cannot touch the benchmark set by society in certain aspects of your life, you start to fear judgment and exclusion. This compels you to create and follow a rigid framework that rarely leaves room for experimentation.
When you question and redefine what success means to you on a personal level, you start to free yourself from the fear of failure, other people’s judgment, and expectations.
When you change your priorities and start to align with your values and beliefs, all these factors stop affecting you. Not landing a high-paying job or being married at a certain age starts to feel insignificant.
As long as you are at peace, the detours, unexpected turns, and setbacks in your life should not matter to you. It will help you see failure not as a deviation from your normal trajectory but rather as a natural part of your successful journey.
8. Create a Failure Resume
A normal resume highlights only your achievements and success to make you stand out from other people. If you take an exactly opposite approach, you will end up with something called’ a failure resume’ which can give you much-needed intrinsic motivation.
The latter boldly highlights all your miscalculations, setbacks, and disappointments. It lets you reevaluate and understand where you went wrong and transform your failure into victory.
When you carefully detail your past failures, you make space for self-reflection and extract valuable lessons from each experience. In the long run, you will realize that failure is a part of your success. It is not an obstacle but a catalyst towards it.
Creating a failure resume will also have a powerful impact on the people around you. You will be able to let go of the myth of overnight success and start to develop an environment that will help you improve yourself constantly.
Conclusion
Now that you have made it so far, you must remember that most of the tips that I mentioned here are quite contrary to societal norms.
This means that there will be people who judge and may even mock you. Take it as yet another stage in your failures and laugh it off.
I know that it’s easier said than done but with time and practice, you can achieve it. You will soon find yourself overcoming all the obstacles.
People who make fun of you now will come and ask how you did it in the future. Your efforts will pay in significant amount, it always does.
All you have to do is focus on yourself and continue working towards your goals despite the odds.
