Overcoming the Fear of Failure

 

All of us fail. All individuals and organizations fail.

Failure happens on the path to success. Some of the greatest thinkers in our time have shared wise words on failure…

“Success is stumbling from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm.”
—Winston Churchill

“A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new.”
—Albert Einstein

“By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.”
—Benjamin Franklin

“I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.”
—Thomas Edison

“It’s fine to celebrate success, but it is more important to heed the lessons of failure.”
—Bill Gates

 

When someone feels held back by a fear of failure, or in other cases, the fear of success, there are three questions I ask that can cause us to feel that fear and help to overcome it.

1. Do you have a clear and meaningful goal?

First things first, I ask “What are your goals?” From there I explain the goal is clear and meaningful.
When these are the case it is easier to get into the action piece.

2. Do you lack the clarity on disciplines required to succeed?

After creating goals comes gaining clarity on how to achieve them. What is the plan?

If you don’t have clarity it can feel defeating not knowing what to do next. Take time to figure this out. Outline small actions — the daily disciplines — that must be done to step closer to meeting the goal.

3. Do you have the work ethic to follow through?

If you don’t, then you must do one of two things. You either lower your aspirations to meet where your work ethic is. Or, you  step up and commit to working hard on a daily basis.

Fear of failure goes hand in hand with fear of rejection. You have to accept the fact that as an insurance professional you will get rejected, you will hear rejections — a lot of them. In the insurance industry, it takes mental toughness to bounce back after each and every rejection.

You have to keep doing the work. You have to be disciplined to do the small daily actions that move closer to your goals.

What separates successful people and organizations from the mediocre, is that the successful ones get up quickly.

We advise our Masterminds members to “fail forward.” Each day brings with it new opportunities to try new things, fail, learn and improve. To be great, learn to fail fast and fail often — then get up quickly!