The One-Liner I Use to Combat My Fear of Failure
Fear of failure, fear of making mistakes, fear of doing it wrong, fear of screwing up and looking stupid — whatever you call it, this is my BIGGEST fear and it’s the #1 thing that holds me back.
I don’t even have to MAKE the mistake or HAVE the fail to feel terrified of it.
Just the thought that I MIGHT fail or MIGHT do something wrong is enough to fill me with fear and deeply influence my actions and decision-making.
I know, logically, that my fear of failure is irrational.
The downside risk of any particular failure or mistake is very, very small.
And the upside potential of my failures and mistakes is HUGE because with every failure comes learning and experience.
(And missing out on learning and experience is way more dangerous than a little ego-bruise.)
To quote Giannis Antetokounmpo, there’s no such thing as failure — there are only steps to success.
And while I might know that rationally, my animal brain still freaks out when the possibility of failure is near.
So in those moments when the fear comes up, this is the one-liner I use to calm my brain down.
I tell myself…
Welcome to the big leagues.
Failure (or possibility of failure) is not a knock on my legitimacy.
Failure (or possibility of failure) is PROOF of my legitimacy.
So far, in your success obstacle course, it’s been all about hitting your marks and getting things right.
But you’ve entered a new part of the field where the rules get flipped upside down.
You’re out of the structured, classroom-style, “here’s the right answer” little leagues…
And you’ve entered the no-rules, no-playbook, “no one knows the answer” big leagues.
This is the part of the obstacle course where most people fall off.
This is The Great Narrowing.
Because success here is not determined by how you well do on Attempt #1 or even Attempt #101.
Success here is determined by how calmly and impersonally you problem-solve through LOTS of failure, picking up the lesson contained in each result until you’ve built the success playbook.
(And that is the only way to build your playbook. No one can hand it to you.)
Most people fall off in this part of the field NOT because they’re not smart enough to figure it out.
Most people fall off because they misinterpret their failures.
They see each failure as a sign that they’re not meant to do this, that they’re not qualified, that this is never going to work, that they should do something else…
…Rather than seeing each failure as proof of their legitimacy. As a sign that they’re on the right track, that they’re exactly where they’re supposed to be, and everything is going RIGHT.
The people you admire the most didn’t have smooth, gleaming, A+ rides to the top.
The people you admire the most got MESSY. They racked up MORE failures, MORE mistakes, and MORE “wtf am I doing?” moments than you have so far.
And that’s exactly what made them who they are today.
So if you’re feeling a little scared and a little wobbly and dreading the possibility of putting yourself out there and totally flopping…
Welcome. You’re in exactly the right place. We’re so happy to have you here.
Welcome to the big leagues.
And you know what else people in the big leagues have?
They have professional support.
You are going to get emotionally flared up when failures and mistakes happen.
(You’re going to get flared up by even the possibility of failures and mistakes.)
You’re only human. Nothing is going wrong here.
The difference between the people who figure it out and the people who don’t make it is NOT that the people who figure it out never get emotionally flared up.
It’s that the people who figure it out recover more quickly from their emotional flareups.
They know how to process the emotional reaction from their automatic brain — how to let it move through their body and take its course.
They know how to integrate the insights from those uncomfortable emotions and incorporate what their intuition is telling them into their plan.
They know how to shift back into a more helpful mode of thinking, where they put their ego aside, avoid all the useless vortexes of worry, and just get to work solving the problem calmly and impersonally.
And they do this again and again, systematically, with control, until they’ve figured it out.
A coach helps you shorten the cycles of your emotional flareups, so you can get out of them more quickly and efficiently.
And a coach teaches you this skillset so you you can do this again and again, for yourself, for LIFE.
You are doing great things in this world. I see you, hard at work.
You deserve professional support to power your journey forward.
Athletes have trainers and nutritionists.
Executives have support teams and advisors.
And YOU deserve an excellent coach.
So come talk to me, and let’s get started.
What my clients have to say…
“Pooja has a really good balance of validating your emotions but also giving feedback and being upfront like, ‘Hey, I've seen this pattern in you.’
That made me trust her and her frameworks — she is really looking out long term for the client’s best interest.”
—Client | CEO, PE-backed company
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