Fear of failure

[Lady_Cygnus]

I have a fear of failure. Once I decide to start something I can’t stop until it’s done, but if it isn’t going to come out perfectly I don’t want to finish. At that point I end up in limbo with half-completed projects lying around. Since I hate not completing things I don’t start them…

So I’m wondering, how many of you also have this problem, and what do you do about it?

 

[Mystophilus]

Lady Cygnus:

I have a fear of failure. Once I decide to start something I can’t stop until it’s done, but if it isn’t going to come out perfectly I don’t want to finish. At that point I end up in limbo with half-completed projects lying around. Since I hate not completing things I don’t start them…

I remember being told, many years ago in psych class, that any given individual has a certain success probability for any given action.

Thus, for an individual called LC, the success probability of action A might be 70%. If LC is pessimistic, she will decide to minimise her attempts in order to minimise her failures. Thus, she will try perhaps 10 times, so that she only fails 3 times. As a result, she will only succeed 7 times.

Another individual, called M, might have a success probability of only 40% for the same action A. However, M might be optimistic, and decide to maximise the number of attempts in order to maximise the number of successes. Thus, M makes 100 attempts, failing 60 times, but succeeding 40 times.

Fear is all about pain, and it is a perfectly natural response to the negative stimulus. However, one of the great joys of human consciousness is our ability to reprogramme our own responses.

Some kinds of pain are good, because they lead to progress.

Of course, the flipside to the aphorism “That which does not kill us makes us stronger” is the comment “That which does kill us makes us dead.”

 

[Lady_Cygnus]

Mystophilus:

I remember being told, many years ago in psych class, that any given individual has a certain success probability for any given action.

Thus, for an individual called LC, the success probability of action A might be 70%. If LC is pessimistic, she will decide to minimise her attempts in order to minimise her failures. Thus, she will try perhaps 10 times, so that she only fails 3 times. As a result, she will only succeed 7 times.

Another individual, called M, might have a success probability of only 40% for the same action A. However, M might be optimistic, and decide to maximise the number of attempts in order to maximise the number of successes. Thus, M makes 100 attempts, failing 60 times, but succeeding 40 times.

Fear is all about pain, and it is a perfectly natural response to the negative stimulus. However, one of the great joys of human consciousness is our ability to reprogramme our own responses.

Some kinds of pain are good, because they lead to progress.

Of course, the flipside to the aphorism “That which does not kill us makes us stronger” is the comment “That which does kill us makes us dead.”

Ok, this is a wonderful proof that the fear of failure is an irrational fear (like a fear of spiders or heights). With all irrational fears the person knows that they are silly, but when faced with the situation they still act contrary to reason. So how would one overcome a fear of failure?

Now, the way people get over a fear of spiders is by being in situations where they are around spiders. So, in parallel, someone gets over a fear of failure by putting himself in a position to fail…I’m not sure I like this

But even finding such situations would be difficult for this person, because he would tend to avoid the situations, or choose to back out…need some way to stop this…… I will have to mull this over for a bit.

Mystophilus, I must say I love your posts, they always make me stop and think

 

[ble]

I have the fear of failure but not enough that it would prevent me from doing something that would not be considered a success in other people’s eyes. In my eyes, I have started something and I want to finish it… but most of the time, I have so many things to do that I forget to finish some tasks that I’ve started on.

I believe most if not all people have fears of failure, who wouldn’t? But through failure comes experience and success.

Warmest regards,
-Ben
clouds.org

 

[Mystophilus]

Lady Cygnus:

So, in parallel, someone gets over a fear of failure by putting himself in a position to fail…I’m not sure I like this

But even finding such situations would be difficult for this person, because he would tend to avoid the situations, or choose to back out…need some way to stop this…… I will have to mull this over for a bit.

Nothing worthwhile is ever easy, though, is it?

Mystophilus, I must say I love your posts, they always make me stop and think

Thank you: you are very kind.

 

[Joan_M]

The only real failure is the failure to try!

So, we try something new and we fail. So what? What are we really afraid of? Of looking stupid? Of being thought of as a failure?

Think of the scientists, or any inventor. Do you think that they succeeded in the first try at discovering or inventing? Of course they didn’t. They tried, and tried, and tried again. Failures can supply the information for a successful attempt. If we analyse our failed attempte we can see - what not to do as well as what to try next.

If any of us are afraid to try (and I am when I think I do not have the necessary knowledge or experience), then we need to look at why we are afraid. Once we know this, we can seek solutions, and go ahead.

Face fear - it is far less difficult than running from it.

 

[Catilieth]

One overcomes the fear of failure by succeeding. Also realize that few successes are complete successes ( no one but God is perfect). The corallary is also true…few failures are complete failures. One thing is to be realistic. Don’t expect to win the Boston Marathon first time out, but expect to finish. Learn from every effort you make…and if you learn something, you have succeeded in that…learning.
Perfectionism that prevents one from even trying, or from finishing a project is really a very damaging form of Pride.

 

[lillysan]

This is always something that I struggle with becasuse of a call to perfection. I know that if it is for earthly things it really does not matter. As for my journey to heaven, there is always an extra call for perfection for me and that does make me worried I will fail.

 

[StephanieC]

Catilieth:

One overcomes the fear of failure by succeeding. Also realize that few successes are complete successes ( no one but God is perfect). The corallary is also true…few failures are complete failures. One thing is to be realistic. Don’t expect to win the Boston Marathon first time out, but expect to finish. Learn from every effort you make…and if you learn something, you have succeeded in that…learning.
Perfectionism that prevents one from even trying, or from finishing a project is really a very damaging form of Pride.

Yes!! This is such a profound truth. I had never, ever connected the two (perfectionism & Pride) until someone almost casually pointed it out to me a year or so ago. Considering my “fear of failure” or perfectionism in terms of sin has made a big difference for me. When it’s something I bring with me into the confessional, it’s time for me to stop treating it lightly.

My husband shared a quote that is echoed in sentiment by the quotes following: “Perfect is the enemy of Good.”

A good plan violently executed right now is far better than a perfect plan executed next week.
–General George S Patton

Better to do something imperfectly than to do nothing perfectly.
–Robert Schuller

If it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing badly.
–G K Chesterton
(Okay, this one, Chesterton’s, took me a little while to grasp and accept & put into practice! Do it badly!? But I…I can’t! But now, guess what? I do things “badly” all the time & it feels great.)

 

[Lady_Cygnus]

ehh…my post moved on me… I suppose it does fit better in this forum, so I’m sorry for misplacing it.

Catilieth:

Perfectionism that prevents one from even trying, or from finishing a project is really a very damaging form of Pride.

I never thought of it in this way before, this makes me want to overcome it that much more. Unfortunately my problem isn’t in recognizing it needs to be overcome, but in how to do it…

When someone is afraid of spiders she might be able to rationalize that she is 100x bigger than the little creature, it’s more afraid of her, etc…but what happens when a spider comes and sits down beside her?

That’s the way it is for the fear of failure as well (for me at least ). I don’t recognize that I have acted out of fear/pride/prefectionist tendencies until after the event has passed, sometimes it will be years later when I realize this.

So what I’m looking for is a way to overcome this (thinking practically here), like a 10 step program or something.

BTW, great quotes StephanieC, perhaps step one is to paste them on my computer monitor

 

[Forest-Pine]

I have one word for you: FLYLADY

flylady.net/

 

[Joysong]

What has been a tremendous help to me is to anticipate, “What is the worst thing that can happen if I …?” I try to imagine everything that can go wrong, and if it does, what then? Many times, the negatives are not so bad that they prevent me from attempting a difficult project, because I can always call in a professional if I fail. Meanwhile, I obtain all available information to do the job correctly.

As a result, I have achieved quite an astounding number of feats that would leave a “normal” person scratching their head as to how on earth did I dare to do such and so! The only thing that keeps me at bay is lack of physical strength, which is often given to a man.

Remember the old song, “Anything YOU can do, I can do better?” Maybe I cannot do it better, but at least I can say that I accomplished it. There is great satisfaction in having finished the work, plus the savings in my pocketbook - .

Carole

 

[StephanieC]

Lady Cygnus:

So what I’m looking for is a way to overcome this (thinking practically here), like a 10 step program or something.

BTW, great quotes StephanieC, perhaps step one is to paste them on my computer monitor

Saaayyyyyyy, Cygnus, didn’t you just answer your own question? Maybe one practical way to overcome it IS to paste–or post—those quotes, or ones similar to them, all over the place!

I actually did that during a time in my life that I felt particularly stuck in the mud. Everywhere I looked, from the bathroom mirror to the kitchen sink, to the basement steps, there were motivational quotes. Here’s one: “Little drops of water can wear away a stone.” Ahhhhh…

The one thing you may not do is make the task of posting the quotes yet another area for perfectionism/ fear of failure. Find them, write or type them, put them up–one, two, three! (Knowing me, I’d start messing with fonts and faces, etc.)