Are you afraid to fail?
Does the thought of failure cause a shiver down your spine?
What if you knew that it is okay to fail?
- Would you then stand in front of an audience delivering a speech?
- Would you write that book that you keep postponing for ages?
- Would you quit your energy-draining job and try new opportunities?
- Would you take the first step to terminate that unhealthy relationship?
Well, let me tell you that IT IS okay to fail!
Imagine what would happen if toddles refused to stand up and try again, the first time they stood up and fell. All of us, would still be crawling on the floor!
Why don’t we take the example that toddles give us, by standing up and trying again every time we fail?
And you know what? Toddles are not afraid to try again.
The fear of failure is a feeling that we -adults- create and exists only in our minds.
If we think logically, we will find out that there is no harm in failing to deliver a speech or a presentation! And by failing, I don’t mean -avoiding- it but delivering it, even if we don’t feel very confident.
And what if you deliberately plan to fail?
I decided to give it a try with my children!
I told them that they shouldn’t be afraid to fail at school. And not only
that but I “challenged” them to fail, not once but up to 5 times during the following week!
Of course, I explained them that by failing, I didn’t mean quitting their effort and their homework.
In order to make it easier for them, I promised a reward every time that they will fail in delivering a demanding presentation or raising their hand giving a wrong answer.
I found it a good way to reward them for trying.
And it seems that it worked.
We, as adults are not so different from 10-year-old kids.
We are also afraid to fail but at different domains of life.
We are afraid of the failure to impress others, to make a business presentation, to deliver an important report, to be good parents, to take our lives in our own hands.
Luckily, as adults, we don’t need our parents to tell us that it is okay to fail. We can fail and reward ourselves for trying, knowing that we have learnt something from our failure(s).
We only have to recognize the valuable feedback from our failures and avoid repeating the same mistake over and over again. It’s called personal growth and it means that we have to go to bed at night, a little wiser than the morning that we woke up.
I tried to apply this technique myself and I can assure you that it worked. In fact, it worked so well that I am now looking forward to all future challenging events that will come my way, having a different perspective about failure.
It allowed me to stand up in front of people delivering a speech, participate to workshops with people that I had never seen before, sing in front of people, publish a book, write blog posts and many others which were clearly outside my comfort zone in the past.
Of course, the fear of the unknown and the stress before important events is and will always be there but embracing failure helps making things easier.
So, get out of your comfort zone, face your fears, try new and exciting challenges and be prepared to fail with a big smile on your face, knowing that you are now one step closer to success..