Live Through the Fear of Failure

By Guillermo Pegoraro and Phillip A. Johansen

Fear is a unique feeling, which is sometimes vital, and other times it destroys us. Many bad habits or character traits are based precisely on this feeling. The fear of exposure makes us lie or hide, for fear of bad business we do not risk anything, and the fear of parting with a loved one changes our personality so much that those we love, unable to bear it, leave.

How to deal with this condition? Is there a way to overcome fear effectively?

Are you really a sensitive and excitable person who gets too nervous before a first date or not fighting for your dreams? Are you used to finding excuses for your behavior?

Although it is normal and necessary to be afraid, since it protects us from threats, everyone knows when these dark thoughts are sabotaging our minds and ending up ruining our lives.

This book is the way to understand the reasons for that toxic feeling, the way to face it and to achieve success, just as successful people who had to face their own fears have achieved.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Editorial Anuket
• Release date: Aug 14, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223357773

Book preview

Chapter 1

The failure

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The willingness to take risks is an important trait of leaders and entrepreneurs. Its reverse is a state of irrational anxiety, and fear of not coping with tasks. According to the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor Report, it is the fear of failure that business leaders believe is a major impediment to innovation.

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What is the benefit of the experience of failure?

What distinguishes us from each other is not how often we fall, but how many times we get up and how we react to falls. Maturity implies the ability to deal with failure. How to learn it?

The difference in reaction to failure is especially noticeable when it comes to babies. Fortunately, they are persistent and determined, otherwise, we would never have learned to walk, talk and do anything else.

Imagine four children who are solving the same problem: they are trying to open a box by sliding a large button to the left. The first child pulls the button, but the box moves, the child cannot reach it now. Then he turns around and starts playing with the diaper.

The second child fiddles with the button for a few seconds but doesn't get it. He sits on the floor and looks at the box. His lower lip quivers, but he doesn't make any more effort.

The third baby pulls the button hard. Failure. But he doesn't give up and after 10 minutes of trial and error, he achieves his goal. The lid opens and a bear jumps out of the box. The boy screams with delight and pushes the bear back, after which everything repeats. The fourth child sees another child open the box. He blushes, hits the box with his fist, and bursts into tears.

The main ways of dealing with failure are formed in early childhood, but we do not have to pay for childhood mistakes all our lives.

Sometimes failure makes us perceive the goal as unrealistic and unachievable, so we give it up without a second thought (like the first baby who forgot about the box when he couldn't reach it).

Others get discouraged and lose the ability to do anything, becoming passive and helpless (like a second baby who just sat and watched). Others keep trying until they get their way. Eventually, some of us become depressed and lose our ability to think clearly.

There are people who take failure lightly, but many take it to heart. Failures always hurt and disappoint us, but they can also give us valuable information, teach us useful things, and help us grow and develop. Thanks to them, next time we are more likely to avoid mistakes and increase our chances of achieving our goal.

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Three psychological wounds of failure

Failure inflicts three wounds on us that need urgent treatment while they are not yet deep. They damage self-esteem by making us draw the wrong conclusions about our abilities. They undermine our self-confidence, motivation, and optimism. Finally, they give rise to fears that make it difficult to move toward the goal. To get into a vicious circle, one or two unpleasant incidents are enough.

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dwarf self-image

Baseball players often claim that when they hit well, the ball feels unusually large (and therefore easier to hit). Failure not only turns our goal into an Everest that only a few can climb but also shrinks us. We begin to seem less intelligent, and less attractive than before.

For example, if a student did not pass the winter session well, he begins to doubt his abilities, and the subjective complexity of the academic discipline increases. Many freshmen decide to drop out after a bad session (especially if they acted like a first baby as a kid).

If our six-year-old failed a spelling test and called himself the big loser, we'd immediately tell him that's not the way to talk about yourself. But we rarely use the same logic when it comes to our lives.

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New Years Resolutions

These promises, as a rule, do not live up to February, and we make hasty conclusions: again, I fail, I am too lazy to do something serious. As a result, we began to treat each other even worse than on New Year's Eve. But it's all a matter of lack of planning. Lack of a start date is one of the most common goal-setting mistakes.

Another typical mistake that kills New Year's resolutions is the abundance of goals. I remember how Paulina, who was recently divorced and raising two school-age children, flew into my office on the first day of the new year and proudly handed me a piece of paper. These are my plans, she explained, "you advised me to take back control of