Failure Analysis: Why do we fear failure?

Success and Failure are two sides of a coin and we have to accept failure as much as we love to achieve success. It’s easier said than done. Accepting and learning from failure isn’t that easy. The major reason for it is the fact that majority of the humans don’t treat them both. You can call yourself mature and level-headed only if you treat success and failure in the same way. One might ask the need for treating them on the same scale. “So what if I value and celebrate moreover my success, I have worked for it and I deserve to enjoy ?”

As much as it sounds true, it can lead to indifferent consequences that an individual might not be ready for. When one wants only success and success alone in his life, he starts fearing failure. His motivation towards is not winning, it becomes “avoiding failure”. There’s a difference between when you want to win and when you want to avoid defeat. This fear of failure is a common phenomenon in human beings. the fear of failure is even called “Atychiphobia”.

So what’s the worst that can happen from failure?

Failure is feared upon for numerous reasons. We will deal with some important ones alone. First of all, Failure causes disappointment in ourselves. We couldn’t achieve what we aimed to be and this provides immense disappointment. Next is the Shame from friends, family, and society. Society is designed in such a way that it heeds only to those who have achieved success. It doesn’t want to listen to a failure story. The third and most important thing is regret and trauma. A failure can cause trauma in an individual. The failure as well provides an unresolvable ‘Regret’. We can wish that things could have gone differently and we could have made different choices or acted differently. But we can’t act upon it now and it causes severe regret that has no solution.

I once took an entrance exam after my 12th for a renowned university in the country. I couldn’t clear it and I missed the chance by a close margin. My family asked me to take the exam again next year and I started preparing for it. But, I couldn’t study. There was an immense regret over the times I wasted before taking the exam, the ways I could have prepared well for the exam kept flashing whenever I started studying. As a consequence it, I dropped my preparation and settled for the next best option.

What causes fear of failure?

Regret is the worst outcome of a failure that can induce fear in taking future attempts. There is no solution to regret and we keep beating ourselves for the choices we made. It doesn’t allow you to sleep and it hinders your recovery. Then there’s the desperation to success grows which is not the right path to victory. Also, failure lowers our self-esteem. We start to think low of ourselves. We compare ourselves to others and start feeling terrible about ourselves. Finally, there’s a societal need to satisfy their expectations. We start working for society than for ourselves. The societal pressure is immense. This is the major reason why we hear numerous suicide cases over failing in exams.

How do I overcome the fear of failure?

Self resolute is the first and foremost important thing while trying to overcome the fear of failure. As mentioned above, start treating both failure and success in the same manner. There will be a terrible phase of self-loathing after failure and undermining looks from your family and friends. These can be surpassed only if you start believing in yourself. Stop avoiding the failure, instead dwell and analyze what went wrong. Learn from it and improve yourself. Look at the worst possible outcome. What’s the worst that could happen if I fail? Make up your mind to be ready for any outcome. Over everything, try to stay positive and have good optimistic thoughts. In that way, you wouldn’t needlessly wander into the fear of failure.

Any human being born on earth has to taste both success and failure. As much as sweet success tastes, you will need the bitterness of failure to know the sweet of success.

“Success is not final, failure is not fatal. It’s the courage to continue that counts” — Winston Churchill.