“There is only one thing that makes a dream impossible: the fear of failure.” – Paulo Coelho
Fear is a powerful motivator. It will motivate you to do nothing at all. It will encourage you to give up. Fear will make you believe that you can’t do it. Fear will tell you that you’re not good enough to even try. What are you afraid of? Failure? Or success?
Media magnate Sumner Redstone says, “Success is not built on success. It’s built on failure. It’s built on frustration. Sometimes it’s built on catastrophe.” How will you ever make it, if you stop trying? Many times people don’t realize how close they were to success when they gave up on their dream.
In 1970, Ross Perot gained some attention for being “the biggest individual loser ever on the New York Stock Exchange’. His Electronic Data Systems shares dropped $450 million in value in a single day when the stock market fell. Much later he said, “Most people give up just when they’re about to achieve success. They quit on the one yard line. They give up at the last minute of the game one foot from a winning touchdown.” According to Forbes, in 2016 Perot was the 167th-richest person in the United States.
Fear of failure can result in self-sabotage. Maybe you’re afraid that you’ll disappoint people. You tell yourself, “I can’t take the chance.” Maybe you’re not being honest about your feelings. You’re confused about how to move forward. Or maybe you think you don’t deserve to succeed. What are you afraid of?
Ask yourself, “Do I complete my projects?” “Do I talk about what I am going to do more than what I actually accomplish?” “Do I take on several projects at the same time…and not focus on any one of them?” “Do I procrastinate or second-guess myself?” “Do things start going really wrong when I’m close to success?”
You can become conscious of your feelings and notice how they are affecting your ability to do what you want to do. You can learn to work around your fears when you become aware that you really can’t fail. You can learn from your failure. Malcolm Forbes says, “Failure is success if we learn from it.” You can make a better plan. You can also decide that you don’t want to go any further. It doesn’t matter anymore. And that’s okay too. That is not failure. That is choice.
Sometimes we self-sabotage our success because we don’t want to be responsible for maintaining it. We can’t handle the idea of fame. We’re uncomfortable with achieving wealth. In some ways, we are afraid of our own greatness. We evade our destiny or avoid using our talents. This fear of success prevents our own self-actualization. We never realize our full potential. We are unable to envision our self as an authority or expert for fear of seeming arrogant, conceited or self-centered. If we become really successful, what will people think of us? Our extraordinary life might not be acceptable to others. Our fears hinder our achievements.
Marianne Williamson speaks of our fears when she says, “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, ‘Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?’ Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”
If you still have exactly the same things on your vision board that were there five years ago, remember this…the difference between success and failure is persistence.