Fear of Failure

We have looked in basic physiological terms above at the fear response and how it happens and affects us. As “Fear of Failure” is outlined as one of the world’s top 10 fears it is worth noting in more detail in this chapter. A good starting point to remember though is this, failure is only failure if you do not learn from it, it is only failure if you do not “get back up again” and try something different and failure is only failure when you let it defeat you. Up until that point, failure is something that simply hasn’t worked…YET!! By being mindful of seeing “failure” in this way it is likely that it will allow you to continue seeing all of the possibilities you envisaged at the outset of planning your entrepreneurial journey.?

One of the mistakes that you can make is to try and supress the fear of failure. Supressing this emotion or any emotion for that matter actually doesn’t work either and research shows that this can actually exacerbate the fear emotion or response as it reduces functionality in the brain in areas that control things such as our ability to learn and take in new knowledge and information.?

3 Key tips for helping you overcome and deal with your fear of failure include:?

1. Anticipate the obstacles you might encounter and visualise what you might do to overcome them if they did occur. This requires a solution focused rather than problem focused approach to thinking. Focus on solutions you could put in to action if your perceived failure occurred in the first place and not the problem (the failure you anticipate).
2. If you perceive you have failed, ask yourself what can I learn from this situation? Commit to addressing between one to three things you will do differently next time in this situation. That way it’s not failure, its learning to do something better next time and that next time might be your biggest opportunity yet for success.
3. If you hit a wall, recognise that it’s a wall and commit to at least three actions you can take to move yourself forward. Remember too that no wall is permanent, you might not be able to go through it but you can go around it or over it, if you face your fear and take action.

Reframe Negative Self Talk

"The conscious mind determines the actions, the?unconscious ?mind determines the reactions; and the reactions are just as important as the actions."

- E. Stanley Jones

Neuro Linguistic Programing (NLP) Theory suggests that we construct our own reality through multiple information systems and much of this reality is constructed in our unconscious mind. Very often this is based on our internal histories and our representations of those histories (Bruce Grimley)

What we say to ourselves becomes what we think about and what we think about becomes our own truth or reality. One of the first things you need to do when you are experiencing negative self-talk which can sabotage your success is to reframe the statements that you say to yourself and articulate them to yourself in a more positive way. It’s as simple as thinking a better thought and telling yourself a better, more positive reality. It takes practice and it takes discipline to change your behaviour to do this if it is not already something you do naturally or at least do naturally most of the time.??

Is it no shock that highly successful people are much more optimistic in general than those who don’t succeed and one of the ways in which this manifests is that they talk to themselves in a positive way and therefore they see a more positive outcome, every time, even in the face of disappointment. They see an opportunity to take a different approach if something hasn’t worked out rather than just assume that they are a failure because it didn’t work out this time. Less optimistic people will think a negative thought and neurophysiology teaches us that if you think a negative thought you are programing your brain to respond to situations in a negative way. Because of this it is probable if not likely that your negative thought will predict a negative outcome and a negative outcome is exactly what you will get.?

An example of when this might come to the fore in business is upon tender submission, especially tenders for large contracts. There will be times when you will win tenders but there will also be times when you won’t get them. The key to your survival and your success is how you handle the rejection. How you respond, how you program your inner voice.?

One of the largest tenders I ever submitted for annual health screening was to a multi-national blue chip company with 1500 employees in Ireland. I was only four years in business and this was going to sky rocket my revenue and profits that year and instantly elevate me to the next level. I put approximately 43 hours work in to the tender preparation, I had it printed and bound professionally, I had provided a really competitive offering and I was down to the final 3 and asked to come in to the organisation to do a presentation on my tender.? I was sure it was mine for the taking.?

I anxiously awaited the deadline and the notification that Healthforce had been successful. Nineteen days later, crash, the “We regret to inform you” letter arrived. I was bitterly disappointed and if I am honest I threw myself a little pity party for the rest of that day. Of course my inner voice, my shadow self and inner critic was niggling in the background, telling me that maybe you have taken on too much with this business, maybe the market doesn’t need another provider, maybe your business is not good enough or big enough to compete, maybe you are not meant to succeed at it.?

The following day it was then time to regroup and it was time to reframe yesterday’s events in my mind so that I could move forward. It was time to think a better thought and look at the lessons to be learned. I went in to the office an hour earlier determined to move onward and upwards to the next prospect. Rather than magnifying how disappointed I was, I thought, what I could have done differently, in all honesty the answer was nothing. I typed up a letter on headed paper asking the HR contact on the tender document for an opportunity to get a meeting so that I could get feedback on where I could have done better. I advised her that I felt this was necessary for my companies continued improvement and growth. I had it couriered to her at 09.00 that morning and I had an email by 12.00 inviting me in the following day to their head office in Dublin. I found out at that meeting that the only place Healthforce scored lower than the chosen provider was that the chosen provider could demonstrate more projects completed on this size and scale. I was relieved. The lady told me who the chosen provider was and interestingly they were about 20 years in business, I was 4 years so of course they could demonstrate more projects of this complexity and scale. My perspective changed in an instant thanks to me taking myself out of my comfort zone and asking the difficult question, “Where could I have done better”?

My point here is that I could have wallowed in self-pity, magnified my disappointment to the point that I allowed myself to convince myself that I was a failure and revert to all or nothing thinking patterns telling myself this business was “never” going to work. I could have made the whole scenario personal to me. I didn’t, I set a new goal after that meeting. It was August and I set a goal that I would get one new client of approximately 1000 employees over the line before the end of the year. And that is exactly what I did.?

Interestingly two years later I won the tender for the company I have described above that two years earlier I didn’t get. I was now the only health screening provider with a mobile health screening unit and they had since expanded and had limited room space for screening. I had also taken on 3 new clients on the scale and complexity of their needs. And it was pointed out to me at our planning meeting that one of the things that impressed their team most was that I took the time to write to them and ask for their feedback so I could commit to continuous improvement.?

Reframing the negative thoughts in the face of my previous disappointment and my determination to persist had worked and it will work for you too!

#fearoffailure #selftalk #reframing #negativethoughts #visualise