- So many of us have these really big, bold dreams
that we would love to pursue,
but we're holding ourselves back
because of fear of failure.
So in today's video, I'm gonna be giving you
some tools and tips and techniques that you can use
to overcome this fear and start living your best life.
(rhythmic music)
Hi, I'm Tasha from One Big Happy Life.
We are all about helping you create the life
that you want.
So today, I wanted to talk to you about fear of failure
and how you can start overcoming that
so that you can start living your best life.
And let me just say from the beginning
that like most, I'm like most people out there,
I deal with fear of failure just like everyone else.
And it's a perfectly normal brain function, right,
because like our primitive brains have evolved
from a time when we were actually hunted and eaten.
And so it still wants to protect us
by keeping us safe.
And so when we think about trying something new,
pushing ourselves to places that we've never been before,
well, our brain is doing its job when it tries
to hold us back.
And not to mention that so many of us
have heard so many stories growing up
and even as adults
that can become like embedded in our unconscious brain
and hold us back from doing the things that we wanna do.
So first, before we get into the tools and tips
to help you overcome fear of failure,
I wanna talk about why we fear failure,
why that fear actually exists
and some of the things that might be coming up for us
that cause us to feel that way.
So fear of failure can be rooted in a lot
of different thought patterns, right,
things that we tell ourselves that feed into that fear.
So one of the things might be
that if we try something and we fail,
well that's a reflection on us and our capabilities,
and it'll actually just prove that we weren't good enough
to begin with.
And so rather than even getting started,
we're like, "Well, I'm afraid that I'm not good enough,
"so I'm not even gonna try."
Now another thing that we might be thinking
is we might be worried about what other people think,
especially if we're trying to do something
or we want to do something that's counter
to what feels normal.
Like, for example, quitting a steady job
to run your own business,
well speaking from personal experience here, obviously.
Some people may not understand that,
or there are plenty of people who have made career changes,
from being a doctor to being a comedian,
and people are like, "Well, that's crazy.
"Why would you ever give up something that's steady
"and stable and prestigious for something
"that's less stable and you're not even sure
"if you're gonna succeed at it?"
And so people are worried, we're like,
"Well, do I even wanna try that thing,
"because what will people say about me if I try it
"and I fail?"
Or another thing that might feed into fear of failure
is worrying about the financial consequences of failure.
And so regardless of where your fear of failure
is stemming from, there are lots of ways,
tools that you can use to help counter
that fear of failure.
And the first thing that I will say when it comes
to failure, so we all have this urge to try
to avoid failure because it's almost like
it reflects back on us and what we're capable of,
or if we fail, it feels like
we're never gonna succeed.
But we shouldn't look at failure as something
to be avoided, right?
Actually in business, there's a saying that you wanna fail
and fail fast because failure really,
all it is is feedback.
Once you fail, you know, well I tried this,
and this didn't work.
So failing at one version of trying
doesn't mean that failure is inevitable.
It just is information,
so now you actually know what doesn't work,
and so you can try something else.
I'm sure that we've all heard time and time again
of inventors who tried and tried and tried
and failed and failed and failed until finally it worked.
Like or even anybody who's achieved anything,
they have failed so many times.
It's just that we often don't hear about the failures.
We only hear about the successes.
So failure is just feedback.
It's not a reflection on you.
It's only a reflection on a particular method
and set of circumstances that didn't work.
You can always try something else,
and you can always improve your skills.
So don't think of a failure as something
that means that you should never do that thing ever again.
So for me, once I started thinking of failure as feedback,
then I wasn't as invested as much
in the specific outcome.
Like the outcome wasn't the be-all end-all.
It's like if it was successful, awesome, I was excited,
but if it wasn't successful, that's okay.
It didn't reflect on me or who I was as a person
or what I was capable of or my ability to achieve the thing.
So that's how I really encourage you to look at failure
just from the beginning.
It's just feedback.
It doesn't actually mean anything about you
or the thing that you're trying to achieve.
So secondly, another thing that I like to do
is to play the what's the worst that could happen game,
where I come up with a plan for okay,
well if worst comes to worse,
what could I do in this particular situation?
And I think it's especially helpful
when you're worried about the financial consequences, right,
because other things like whether or not we're capable
or what other people think of us,
those are all mindset things.
Those are all in our minds,
and it's up to us how we let that affect us.
But when it comes to financial consequences of choices,
well, those are actually external to us, right?
Either you made money or you didn't make money.
And there are so many things that you can do
to prepare yourself financially as you're heading
to take that big risk,
but one of the things that I love to do is doing this
what's the worst that could happen thing.
Where I sit and I think about,
okay, if worst come to worse, what would that look like?
What would my finances look like,
and what would I have to do in order to overcome that thing?
And I really enjoy doing this anyway in instances
where I'm not fearing failure,
but I feel like I absolutely have to succeed.
That might actually be two sides of the same coin,
where I put a lot of pressure on myself
to reach certain milestones.
And when I feel that happening,
I step back, I try to be present and step back from that
and say, "Why am I putting so much pressure on myself
"to accomplish this in this way by this time?
"If I don't accomplish this, what is the worst
"that's gonna happen?
"What can I do to prepare so if worst come to worse,
"that's okay, but I don't have to put
"all of this pressure on myself?"
So let's say business-wise.
If the business fails and it just crashes and burns,
well, worst come to worse,
I've learned so many skills that make me
even more marketable if I wanted to stay
in the business arena.
I could always start another business,
or I could go back to the career that I had before.
So it's not like it's the end of the world
if I were to fail.
So I would love for you to play the what if game and say,
"Okay, what is the worst that could happen,
"and what are some of the things that I could do
"if worst-case scenario goes down?"
And so when you have that contingency plan,
now some people will say don't have a contingency plan
'cause it stops you from going all-in,
but for me, especially with kids to support,
it gives me peace of mind to say,
"Well, worst come to worse, I can always fall back on this."
So that erodes a lot of the fear of failure.
Another thing to remember is that everything is temporary.
Nothing is permanent.
So if you failed once, twice, three times, 10 times,
50 times, it's still just a temporary setback.
And you can keep working at it
and you can keep tweaking it because it only takes one yes,
right, for you to be successful.
So wherever you are right now,
it may feel like this is where you'll always be,
but just reminding yourself that this is not
where you'll always be, this is not where you have to stay,
that you can take steps to change
whatever it is that's going on in your life,
no matter how many nos you get,
no matter how many times you failed,
you can always try again.
And the last thing that I do
when I start feeling that fear of failure
is I ask myself, "Well, how do I wanna spend my life?
"What kind of life do I want to look back on?
"Do I wanna look back and say, well, oh, that was great,
"I played it safe?
"Or will I be proud of what I've done?
"Will I be happy with the life that I've lived
"if I just played it safe because I was too afraid
"to try new things?"
Or let's just say that I never succeeded,
that I tried and tried and tried,
and I got to the end of my life and I'm looking back
on all of my attempts.
I think I'll be really proud of that,
that I really tried really hard,
that I lived my life as fully as I possibly could,
that I took every moment to step into
the best and fullest version of myself,
and then I never gave up.
Because to me the alternative,
which is settling for less than what I want,
is far worse than constantly trying
to get a step further towards what I actually want,
even if I never quite get there.
And the last thing that I will say is to redefine
what success looks like.
Now for a lot of people, they'll set a goal.
Let's say the goal was lose 50 pounds this year.
And they don't reach that goal,
and so they're really disappointed
because it's the end of the year and maybe
they didn't lose any weight.
And so they're like, "Well, that sucked."
Or they only lost 20 pounds.
They're like, "Well, I didn't hit my goal."
But if we stop looking at the end goal
as the definition of success and instead look
at how we show up every day for ourselves
as the definition of success,
well, you can be successful even if you don't
quite hit that goal.
And like I like to say,
life is the thing that happens between our goals.
So if you are just so focused on the end,
you miss the thing, you miss your actual life,
which is the living, the day-to-day of taking actions
and showing up as your best self every single day.
So frankly, even if you don't ever get to that end goal,
if you show up as that person that you wanna be
every single day, then you are already successful
because you are already living your full and best,
happiest and most successful life.
So I hope this video was super helpful to you
and helps you overcome that fear of failure
so that you can start moving forward
towards the things that you actually want in life.
All right, see you in the next video, bye.
(rhythmic music)