Be a Success! Face Your Fears!

I was talking to a lady the other day who wants to go back to school, but her excuse is, "I'm too old, I can't keep up with those young people, I can't this, I can't that." She really sounded as if she was afraid of trying.

Atychiphobia is defined as the fear of failure. We can be so consumed with fear of failing at something, it paralyzes us from even trying.

This mental distress can be traced back to our early childhood, maybe we had parents or siblings, that were very negative. Maybe we tried something in our life that we did not succeed at and it left us embarrassed.

For me it was trying out for cheer leading, making the squad and then having to quit because of lack of support from family and lack of transportation, I never forgot it.

According to Psychology.com, "Unless we learn to embrace failure, (whether it led by an unavoidable mishap, a moral lapse, or a risk miscalculated), we remain snugly tucked inside our comfort zone."'

Being afraid to fail is one of the greatest fears people have and it is often related to fear of criticism and fear of rejection. Successful people overcome their fear of failure.

According to Goal Setting Guide.com, "The law of feedback states: there is no failure, there is only feedback. Successful people look at mistakes as outcomes or results, not as failure. Unsuccessful people look at mistakes as permanent and personal."

Here are some steps to overcome failure:

1. Take action: make a decision to go for something and then do it.

2. Persist: Don't give up. If it doesn't work the first time, try again and again and again.

3. Don't take failure as personal: Even if you don't succeed as what you tried for, it doesn't mean you are a failure.

4. Do things differently: If the way you are trying to accomplish your goals doesn't work, try something else.

5. Don't be too hard on yourself: If you don't succeed at this one thing, you now know what doesn't work.

6. Treat experience as opportunity to learn: Ask yourself why didn't it happen, what could I have done differently.

7. Look for the positive that results from the experience: You will see positive things about who you are as a person and as not a giver upper.

8. Learn from mistakes and try not to repeat them. Hindsight is twenty-twenty.

Don't allow past mistakes, fear of the failure or unknown stop you from going for your dreams.