London Life Coach talks about the fear of failure
Ever since the day I became the London life coach the phrase hear most often is “fear of failure” (shortly followed by a conversation about procrastination because one drives the other).
All day every day; recent grads, directors, CEO’s; everyone at every level seems to have this lurking somewhere.
But if you change just one word it changes EVERYTHING:
Replace failure with learning. Yes from fear of failure to fear of learning. Now suddenly it sounds the stupid phrase it really is. Who in their right mind would avoid a chance to learn?
If babies feared failure we’d all still be walking around on all 4s. If we had fear of failure as ten year olds we’d never learn how to play a new sport.
Every time you try something new chances are you are going to fall flat on your face. Several times. Yet each time you fall bit by bit you reduce the chances of falling again. We never ever get the outcome we want when trying new things, frankly it would be pretty dull if we did. Imagine…
- Today I’m going to become a life coach. Next day; right mastered that what’s next?
- Today I’m going to learn to speak Italian. 12 hrs later; right don’t that what next?
- Learn skating, right done that what’s next?
You get the idea, trying, learning, improving, and finally mastering something is what life is all about.
Same applies to changes jobs or changing careers, there are going to be lots of false starts, lots of “your CV needs work”. That’s not failure it’s just the first step in a process. And you need to be paying attention to every ‘fail’, because it is the most important opportunity to learn.
Listen Listen Listen to what you are being told. Because true failure is being given the chance to improve… and not taking it. Or worse not even seeing it. A huge part of my job as a life coach is to help my clients grab these valuable learning opportunities.
So ask yourself, where am I avoiding a chance to learn, to improve, and to move forward? How can I create more not less of these learning opportunities?
If I can’t see it do I need a coach, a friend, a boss to help me see them?
Every time you catch yourself fearing failure, stop, take a breath and replace fear of failure with fear of learning and grab it with both hands instead of running away.
Good luck!