How To Grow When You’re Scared Of Failing
You can’t grow if you’re scared of failing.
In fact, if you’re terrified of failure, you won’t even try. You’ll stay in the same place and watch as everyone around you gets ahead. You’ll wonder what’s wrong with you. The truth is that nothing is wrong with you. You’re just scared of failing.
There are ways to get over being scared and start growing. The first step is admitting that there’s something holding you back from reaching your full potential. When you know what it is, then you can start working on it. That means taking risks and pushing yourself out of comfort zones.
The second step is recognising that you’re scared of failing and that it isn’t the worst thing that could happen to you. In fact, it might be the best thing! If something doesn’t work out exactly how you want it to (or at all), then take a deep breath and move on. Don’t let yourself get stuck in regret or guilt because things didn’t go as planned. Instead, think about what went wrong so that next time around things will go better.
Are you scared of failing?
The truth is, it’s not really failure that you’re afraid of; it’s what happens in you mind after you fail. You might get down on yourself and feel like the world is closing in around you. Eventually, when those feelings aren’t manageable anymore, you probably give up. This is common and we all feel it, you are not alone.
The thing is: being scared of failing is a natural part of life—it can’t be avoided by anyone who’s trying to accomplish something great. The only way to truly grow as a person and achieve your goals is to embrace failure as an opportunity for growth and change.
Here are some steps to take when you’re feeling scared of failing:
- Learn from your mistakes. The first step in overcoming fear of failure is acknowledging that mistakes happen—and they’re actually good! They can teach us valuable lessons about what doesn’t work so well (or at all), which helps us make better decisions down the road. So instead of beating yourself up over things that didn’t turn out how you expected them to, view them as an opportunity for growth and change.
- Ask for help. When you’re feeling like you’ve failed or that something didn’t go according to plan, talking about it with someone who has been there before you can really make a difference.
- Set small goals with big impact.
- Make sure your goals are attainable and give yourself room for error. You may not hit all of your goals right away, but you’ll be closer than ever before.
- Celebrate each success. We often wait for a finish line but coaching will tell you that progress is your constant there is not clear destination because you can’t control what you can’t control.
Business owners are scared of failing
Many of the most established business owners talk about a fear of failure so you’re in good company.
Every successful business owner has failed at least once. And I’m not just talking about little mistakes or minor setbacks—I mean big-time failures. The kind of stuff where people think they’re going to have to declare bankruptcy and start over from scratch because they’re so far in debt that they can’t see any way out. But those are the people who are able to recover.
They’re the ones who come back stronger than ever after hitting rock bottom and realising they can only go up from there. They’re the ones who keep going when everyone else would have given up. And when they do make it through those tough times, they’ve learned something invaluable: that failure is part of success!
I’m Puja McClymont. I specialise in coaching senior leaders who make an impact to help them expand the possibilities of their potential, creating further growth and meaningful impact.
Through my distinctive approach which combines ancient wisdom with modern psychology, clients enable every facet of their lives to thrive, creating extraordinary outcomes.
