WHAT IF I FAIL???

Fear of FAILURE is actually overrated as an excuse. It isn’t FAILURE that people are afraid of, it’s CRITICISM. Many times we hesitate to change our lives because we’re worried, deep down, that someone will hate it and call us out on it.

Everyone fails at something.  Edison failed at creating the light bulb, Newton failed to discover universal gravitation, Galileo failed to advance astronomy, and Socrates failed at the Socratic Method.  All of them failed until they succeeded.  We remember their successes, but their failures should be remembered just as much.  Every time they failed it drove them that much more until they succeeded.

You are not so much different from them.  May be you will discover the meaning of life, or the reason behind one of life's greatest questions.  Or maybe your sights are set a little lower, finding a better job, a happier home life, getting in better physical shape, strengthening your relationship(s).  Whatever it is that you want; at most you are only a failure away from achieving it!

‘You decided to do what!?’ ‘What a stupid idea!’ ‘You’re just wasting your life!’People see the world as they are. When they criticize others for pursuing their dreams (when they themselves are not), they don’t want to feel inadequate. If you decide to remain in your boring life, they get validation for their own choices. If you decide to move on and pursue something more, they would have to face their own reality of unfulfilled dreams.

It comes down to this: if you do something boring and expected, there’d be no criticism. No conversations. The actions that get talked about are the ones that are worth talking about.

So the challenge, as you contemplate your next opportunity to be boring or remarkable, is to answer this question: If I get criticized for this, will I suffer any measurable impacts?

If the only side effect of the criticism is that you will feel bad about the criticism, then you have to compare that bad feeling with the benefits you’ll get from actually doing something worth doing. Pursuing your dreams is exciting, fun, and great for your career. Feeling bad wears off.

We all think of failure as a bad thing.  It means you didn't achieve whatever it is you were trying.  But the truth is without failure there would never be success.  If we didn't fail at what we attempted we wouldn't have to attempt it, everything would come naturally.  We'd all have millions or billions of dollars, we'd all be driving big fancy cars.

The truth is we have to fail.  And how we react to failure defines us.  Will we give up at the first sign of trouble?  Will we persevere and accomplish our task no matter how long it takes and how hard it is?  Or as I myself have done on many occasions - will we hesitate or even fail to start because we fear we may fail to finish?

The purpose of this artical is to encourage you to try.  You are going to fail.  But don't give up, every time you try you are that much closer to succeeding!  And sometimes failure will lead you down another path where you realize what you really want is something else entirely.