Are you tired of playing it safe and not reaching your full potential?
Fear of failure can hold us back from embracing opportunities and stepping out of our comfort zones. However, by adopting solution-focused strategies, you can overcome these fears, conquer challenges, and embark on a journey of personal growth and success.
Understanding the Power of Fear
According to evolutionary scientists the main purpose of fear is to keep us safe. Safe from oncoming traffic, falling off cliffs, getting bit by poisonous animals etc. But it can also hinder us from achieving our goals and reaching our full potential.
If we constantly fear the unknown, we prevent ourselves from reaching new heights. This is especially applicable to our personal lives including our ambitions. So, how do we conquer this fear to achieve a fulfilling life without regretting that we never tried?
Manifestations of Fear
Fear, in our personal lives, comes in various forms:
- Self-doubt
- Procrastination
- Avoidance
- “What-if” mentality
Self-Doubt
As humans, we constantly struggle with self-doubt. I believe this is due to comparing ourselves with others on a daily basis. Social media makes it easy for us to do. We see successful people all the time thinking that they never made mistakes and that they just woke up successful one day.
This cannot be further from the truth. All successful people had to make mistakes to learn from and find new solutions to those problems. However, had they listened to that voice telling them they’re not good enough we would not have Microsoft, Amazon, PayPal, SpaceX etc.
Procrastination
Procrastination is a self-defeating habit most of us struggle with at times. It’s marked by short-term benefits with long-term costs.
Why are we scared of starting today? Would it really make a difference starting next week? Why would starting next week be any safer than starting today? There is no difference, that’s the problem. We always place the most important thing last on our to-do lists. Every. Single. Day.
It’s been found that procrastinators have a lack of self-control due to the depletion of mental resources. Researchers found that procrastination is associated with:
- Higher levels of stress and anxiety
- Lack of persistence, work discipline and time management
- Have weak impulse control
- Unable to work methodically
Consequently, continuous procrastination leads to feelings of regret, being overly stressed from the inability to complete tasks and the result is an increase in negative self-talk.
Avoidance
Avoidance refers to behaviors that individuals use to ensure that they don’t get involved in certain situations. It also enables them to leave certain situations that cause specific feelings.
It also refers to behaviors where individuals actively choose to avoid certain feelings. Instead, they bottle it up, put the lid on and hope to never deal with it.
According to Silvi Saxena, from Choosing Therapy, avoidance may look like someone avoiding new job opportunities, social situations, relationships, career advancements etc. They use avoidance as a coping mechanism for pain, trauma and various mental health issues.
Avoidance can give us a false sense of control. We think we’re avoiding dangerous situations, but ultimately, we’re just keeping ourselves from reaching our full potential.
What-If Mentality
Don’t we all understand the “what-if” mentality? What if I’m not good at my new job? What if they laugh at me? What if I’m not good enough for…?
We fear rejection without actually knowing 100% that it’s going to happen. So, we reject ourselves before we get rejected (or not) by others.
What if you’re not good at your job? You’ll learn and you’ll get better. What if you turn out to be great at your job?
But what if they laugh? So what? You’ll laugh at them when you’re successful and they’re not. Then you’re going to teach them how to be successful.
Okay, and what if you’re not good enough for…? Perhaps you’re too good for Shaun, Brian or Megan. Thing is, you’ll never know unless you try and put yourself out there. Don’t stop yourself from reaching your goals and fullest potential if you have no evidence to back it up.
Fear is normal and experienced by everyone, but it should not dictate your choices or limit your potential. You absolutely have what it takes and more, but you just don’t know it yet.
Shifting Your Mindset
I encourage you to reframe your perspective on failure: instead of viewing it as a setback, consider it an opportunity for growth and learning.
Persist through setbacks and incorporate a growth mindset. See failure as an opportunity to learn and grow. You can learn anything you want. It’s your effort and attitude that determine your abilities.
If you continually believe that you’re not good enough, you’re playing into a self-fulfilling prophecy. However, the inverse is also true. If you believe you can and are capable of achieving remarkable things, those things will come true.
Start doing things that back up your positive beliefs. Get out of your comfort zone and do something scary. Many successful people say this and do this on a daily basis. They have good reason for saying and doing it.
It provides them with the opportunity to learn something new about themselves and to grow from the experience. Look at it this way:
Stagnant water is harmful as it’s an incubator for bacteria and parasites whereas running water gets rid of bacteria and parasites. Plants that stagnate eventually wilt and die unless something changes to encourage growth.
Humans are also part of nature. If we’re stagnant for too long we get ill (mentally and / or physically) unless we learn to grow. If something isn’t working, we should learn from it and not make the same mistakes. Believe that you have the ability to improve and in ultimately reaching your full potential.
It will lead to higher confidence, better decisions and a happier, more fulfilled you. Next, I’ll provide some guidance on how you can overcome your stumbling blocks, mental fears and step into a new, goal-driven you.
Solution-Focused Strategies
Below are three strategies that you can use to conquer your fears, challenges, and embark on a journey of personal growth and success.
Strategy 1: Setting Clear Goals and Creating a Roadmap
You want to set goals that are SMART:
- Specific
- Measurable
- Achievable
- Realistic
- Time-bound
If your goals are big, it would be better to break them down into smaller chunks to make them more manageable and less prone to discourage you.
Example: You wish to achieve an A for all your subjects. This goal can seem daunting for most people especially those who aren’t academically inclined. But trying to achieve an A for 2 subjects to start with seems more manageable. This strategy can then be replicated for the other subjects.
To keep you on track, celebrate the small achievements. Tony Robbins refers to this as reinforcements in Unleashing the Giant Within. Each time you reach a goal, celebrate it as a way to reinforce that behavior.
Reinforcement can be applied to bad habits as well. You have to reward yourself for anything you want to continue doing until that bad habit no longer exist.
Strategy 2: Visualizing Success and Building Self-Confidence
Explore the power of visualization in overcoming fear and building confidence. Visualization is a technique whereby you create a mental image of the feared situation. It can help reduce anxiety and ultimately increase confidence.
One technique of visualization is called desensitization. This is where you gradually expose yourself to the feared situation in your imagination. You start out with a mild version of the situation and gradually work yourself up to a more intense version.
Example: If you fear public speaking (because “what-if” or due to self-doubt) you can visualize getting ready for the event. Then go over your speech in your head. Visualize how you practice the speech in your room before the event. Then visualize yourself taking the stairs up to the stage and so on.
As you become more comfortable with the situation in your imagination, you can gradually expose yourself to the situation in real life. You can start out small by perhaps having the speech in front of close family, then friends, friends of friends and so on.
This can help to gradually reduce your anxiety and increase your confidence. This will make it easier for you to confront your fears. Remember, you can do anything you put your mind to but you are also the only one that can hold you back from reaching your full potential.
Strategy 3: Taking Action and Embracing Failure
Before taking action, remember to take calculated risks. You don’t want to end up losing everything because the possible reward seems life changing. In the words of Richard Branson, “Be bold, but don’t gamble.”
It’s easy to give up when things get tough but keep chasing your dreams and goals. Once you decide to do something, don’t look back and never regret the choices you make.
Be prepared to make mistakes, but also be prepared to learn from them. Don’t be paralyzed by them. This is the only way you’ll get out of your comfort zone and grow.
It’s always two steps forward one step back. Develop resilience to reach your full potential:
- Adapt to adversity. Continue functioning even though you are stressed, experienced trauma, grief etc. Also be able to reach out to loved ones for support.
- Make each day meaningful. Do things that give you a sense of accomplishment. This will increase your confidence.
- Learn from experience. One way of doing this is journaling. Write down when things are hard, but also continue writing when things are good. That way you’ll find a pattern of what you did to overcome the hardships in your life.
- Practice selfcare. The only way to grow and move forward is to also take your own needs into account.
- Be proactive. Always know that your situation can improve but only when you work at it. Figure out what you need to do and create a plan of action.
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