Photo by Vie Studio
One of the biggest obstacles most of us will inevitably face as we embark on our creative journeys or begin any new creative project for that matter, is the fear of failure. Personally, I struggled immensely with this as a creative for a very long time. As a matter of fact, it’s the reason I took so long to start this blog. My internal conversations often went something like this..
“I’m not tech-savvy enough to build a website that people actually want to visit ..might as well forget it.”
Then, “What if I somehow manage to build a reasonably attractive site, but I’m not creative enough to come up with new blog post ideas consistently? Probably shouldn’t even start then..”
After that hurdle, it was then, “What if I do manage to be consistent and come up with new ideas, but no one reads them because my writing actually sucks? I’m probably not cut out for this..”
Sadly, I would succumb to these moments of fear and self-doubt, and eventually put my dreams on the backburner once again. A few weeks or months would then pass, inspiration would hit and I would get excited all over again. Then slowly but surely..those fears and doubts would begin to creep in and the cycle would repeat itself all over again. And maybe you’re in a similar place. Maybe you’re ready to write that book, start that business or even start a blog yourself, but are stuck in that nasty cycle of fear and self doubt asking, “Am I really good enough to do this?”
Getting to the place where I was able to overcome the fear of failure was not an easy journey. It took years of pushing past those constant feelings of self-doubt, perfectionism and plain overthinking to get here. Thankfully, I was finally able to break free from its clutches and here are some key lessons I had to learn to overcome this fear and finally begin the journey to creative freedom.
- Understand that the only way out is through. In other words, the only way that you’ll overcome your fear of failure is by embracing that fear and pushing through it anyhow. I know. Yet, it’s the hard, but simple, truth. You won’t know what you’re good for until you dive into that thing headfirst and get your hands dirty. When you finally decide to embrace that fear, you get to see your strengths, weaknesses and areas that you can improve in. Embracing those challenges or things that scare you also boosts your confidence, which will give you the fuel you need to keep going. So the faster you dive in, the better.
- Accept the fact that failure is inevitable. Everyone’s failed at some point in life. Whether it be a pop quiz or a failed relationship, we’ve all been there. And our creative journeys are no different. As we grow in our creative gifts, we’re bound to make mistakes and imperfection is inevitable. There will be moments when you look back and cringe, like when you watch your first YouTube video with those crappy transitions or listen to that old podcast episode where you literally sounded like a robot. But guess what? Your faves went through the same thing at some point. They, too, cringed when they looked back at where they started and how much they sucked. But they didn’t allow that to stop them. They kept failing forward until their videos became the near cinematic masterpieces you now enjoy and their public speaking and production skills eventually landed their podcast among the top ten in their niche. The key takeaway is that they kept going even in the midst of failure. And guess what? So should you. When you begin to realize that failure isn’t a roadblock to your success, but an absolutely necessary component of it, the journey gets much easier.
- Redefine failure and reframe the way you see your own. While understanding that failure is inevitable and embracing it can teach us to take more risks, this doesn’t necessarily eradicate its impact when it comes. Based on its definition, most of us will naturally view failure as something negative and see it as an indication that we aren’t qualified or good enough. For many of us, especially those with perfectionist tendencies, failure can truly hit like a brick, taking huge chunks of our self-esteem, confidence and motivation along with it. So how do we overcome this? How do we push past these moments and not allow failure to define us?
The answer?
By us redefining failure ourselves and reframing the way we view our own so-called ‘failures’.
Instead of viewing moments of failure in a negative light and as a measure of our self-worth or competence, why not view it as a progress report of sorts, showing us all the opportunities we have to grow, while reminding us of just how far we’ve come? What if we saw them as lessons, rather than losses?
When we start viewing failure this way, the fear of it starts to lose its power as we begin to embrace challenges, all while learning to be more gentle with ourselves in the process. We stop living life on resistance-mode and surrender to its beautiful possibilities, ‘failure’ included.
So get out there, push past the fear and dive into the unknown. Face the possibility of failure head on and keep going anyhow.
You might just mess around and find out what you’re truly made of.
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