Episode 1239: Fear of Failure

[00:00:00] Scott Maderer: Thanks for joining me on episode 1,239 of the Inspired Stewardship Podcast.

[00:00:06] Darryl Lyons: I'm Darryl Lyons, author of 18 2 80. I challenge you to invest in yourself, invest in others, develop your influence and impact the world by using your time, your talent, and your treasures to live out your calling. Having the right behavior with your money is key to doing that, and one way to be inspired to do that is to listen to.

[00:00:30] The Inspired Stewardship podcast with my friend Scott Maderer,

[00:00:34] Scott Maderer: and recognize that the impact of this is really big. It can keep you from trying new things. It can keep you. From succeeding at your goals because you self sabotage your behavior. It's something that you really need to identify and work through, and again, oftentimes it can rise to the level that you need professional help from a therapist to do that.

[00:00:58] Welcome and thank you for [00:01:00] joining us on the Inspired Stewardship Podcast. If you truly desire to become the person who God wants you to be, then you must learn to use your time, your talent, and your treasure. For your True calling in the Inspired Stewardship Podcast, who will learn to invest in yourself, invest in others, and develop your influence so that you can impact the world.

[00:01:24] In today's episode about investing in yourself through stewarding your talent. I talk with you about what the fear of failure is and how to recognize if you. I'll also share where it comes from and give you some specific things you can do to help move forward and overcome that fear. You've heard me talk about developing your talent, and one of the best ways to do that is through books.

[00:01:49] But if you're like most people today, it's hard to find the time to read, and that's why today's podcast is brought to you by Audible. Go to inspired [00:02:00] stewardship.com/audible to sign. And you can get a 30 day free trial. There's over 180,000 titles to choose from, and you can pick one and listen your way to developing your talents via Audible.

[00:02:16] That's inspired stewardship.com/audible to get your free trial and listen to great books the same way you're listening to this podcast. as we talk about stewarding your treasures. Wouldn't it be great if you could support this podcast and do it without costing yourself an extra. Turns out you can't.

[00:02:36] All you have to do is use inspired stewardship.com/amazon when you're ready to make a purchase via Amazon, and a small commission will come back to support the show. If you enjoy the show, when you're ready to buy from Amazon, just use inspired stewardship.com/amazon. Fear of failure is something that a lot of folks deal with at [00:03:00] different levels.

[00:03:01] Simply define, it's an irrational and persistent fear of failing. In other words, it's this feeling inside that no matter what you do, no matter what you try, you're not going to succeed it. It can be related to a mental health condition like anxiety or depression, but it also can come from past trauma.

[00:03:25] From attempting to be a perfectionist, from having unrealistically high standards for ourselves and all sorts of other things, it can rise to the level of being something that can truly be described as a phobia and requires some sort of mental health treatment. But I think a lot of us deal with this at some level just in our day to day life in trying to get through and do what we feel like we're supposed to.

[00:03:54] some of the symptoms of that, some of the behaviors that you can exhibit that indicate that there may [00:04:00] be an underlying fear of failure going on are suffering anxiety every time you try to do something or have a new goal or new task avoidance kinds of behaviors. Putting it off or making sure that other things come up so that you don't have to do those tasks.

[00:04:17] Feeling that you. A loss of control or no control over your own destiny or your own choices, having feelings of helplessness or powerlessness, all of these sorts of underlying symptoms that include sometimes actual physical symptoms like your raising your heart rate, chest tightening, difficulty breathing, trembling, dizziness, all of these sorts of things show up in our.

[00:04:44] and sometimes it's not really easy to identify where it's coming from, the underlying emotion that it's coming from or the underlying feeling that's living to this. Some examples [00:05:00] that can lead to this sort of underlying feel feeling is simply believing that you don't have the skills or knowledge that you need to do it.

[00:05:08] Feeling that you won't be able to achieve your goals no matter what you. Exhibiting procrastination, not just a little bit, but to the point that it affects your ability to perform or ability to finish on time. You're setting yourself up so that it automatically fails when you're describing your goals and you're task.

[00:05:30] Always telling people that you're probably going to fail anyway, so that their expectations remain low. Consistently underestimating your own abilities so that you don't feel. You let yourself or anyone else down constant worrying about imperfections or shortcomings that you feel will make other people think less of you and worrying all the time that others will be disappointed in you because of you failing.

[00:05:59] This can [00:06:00] come from your past history. If you were raised in a household where people were highly critical or unsupportive, then a lot of times that leads to an adult fear of failure because you have this feeling that no matter what you do, you can't live up to others' expectations. Sometimes you define success in such a tight way that if it doesn't occur exactly the way you had it planned.

[00:06:28] This kind of perfect and perfectionism idea, then that's a failure when in reality you may have actually achieved the underlying goal, but you simply had it happen in a different way. And then of course, having a history of trauma or something traumatic, like a major event where it did go really wrong.

[00:06:51] And because of that, you've now extrapolated that everything in your life is going to be like that. can lead [00:07:00] to a feel a feeling of failure in other areas and recognize that the impact of this is really big. It can keep you from trying new things. It can keep you from succeeding at your goals because you self sabotage your behavior.

[00:07:18] It's that you really need to identify and work through. And again, oftentimes it can rise to the level that you need professional help from a therapist to do that. But some of the underlying techniques that you can use, is making sure that you sit down and you really think through and visualize not just your goals, but your thoughts, your feelings, and what you're doing around those goals, and where is it coming from, What's the underlying meaning behind it?

[00:07:49] You can clarify what is success and what is failure, and broaden your definition of success in such a way. It's not [00:08:00] only about achieving the perfect result, it's about moving in the direction. You can begin to focus on the journey and the process more than the actual result. You can do exercises and work on things that give you self-esteem, such as working and breaking down into smaller goals, giving yourself permission to fail, surrounding yourself with people that build you up and hold you accountable in a positive.

[00:08:27] you can actually give yourself permission to fail or even plan to fail exhibit failure, and do it in a safe environment over and over again until it B breaks the pattern of the fear of failure. I mentioned earlier breaking projects into smaller tasks. When you have large, overwhelming goals, identify what are the smaller pieces that you can actually achieve.

[00:08:51] Recognize that if the things you've been doing up till now are not working, you need to inject some new [00:09:00] techniques, some new processes, some new habits, and some new mindsets. This is where focusing on gratitude meditation exercises, doing gratitude journals, these sorts of things can help as. And then again, working with someone else, either a coach or a therapist, depending on your situation, can also be very helpful because it can help you make sure that you've got that external accountability and a voice speaking into your life that sees a little bit from outside of what's going on in your life.

[00:09:37] Thanks for listening.

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