Fear of failure
Do you have a fear of failure? Do you get stuck behind the starting line of the things that you want to do because of the fear of failure? Would you like to be successful in the way that you have always wanted? Read on and you might just find the inspiration that you need!
Fear of failure, is highly toxic and damaging yet too many of us live with it, becoming too comfortable with it, no matter at what cost.
It is very important to tackle it by taking the right steps and getting free.
As you do that you will become addicted to the feelings of defeating. It will become your normal to live free of it and grow in your emotional agility.
You will face your fears automatically without consciously thinking about them. When this happens, you will feel ecstatic in ways that you have never felt before.
This post is all about teaching you how to defeat the fear of failure so that you can live your potential life.
The fear of failure
1) The general who was the complete opposite of Ulysses Grant: What fear of failure looks like.
I love people in history like Ulysses S. Grant, who accomplished almost superhuman levels of accomplishments because of their audacity, tenacity, and grit. They light the way for us to lead a better world. They help us to be better versions of ourselves.
They give us hope that affecting powerfully positive change is possible
While I was reading about Ulysses Grant in this and other biographies about him, I found someone who had qualities opposite to Grant and interestingly produced exact opposite results in our world.
The way this man’s life unfolded, and how he impacted his life due to his actions and inactions are warning signs for us to avoid. We can all learn from his example.
His name was George B. McClellan.
McClellan drove Abraham Lincoln crazy with his fear of failure. McClellan refused to take Lincoln’s many orders to go into battle afraid that he will lose.
McClellan offered every excuse, his favorit one: that he didn’t have enough men.
When Lincoln sent more men, McClellan asked for more men.
McClellan repeately claimed that the other side had many times more.
His inaction allowed many of his enemies of ridiculously far lesser numbers even with far fewer ammunition and with far fewer tainings to get away, always and every time.
McClellan, to his dying day, made every excuse for his inactions, never owning up to his mistakes, as people of this type never do.
Grant, on the other hand, always took action, and focused on his goal, to his dying day.
And when you look at Grant’s own biography, one can learn just how self-aware he was he fearlessly claimed responsibility for things, perhaps even for things he didn’t have to claim.
Complete opposite behaviors to the ones George McClellan always took.
George B McClellan’s refusal to take action drove Abraham Lincoln crazy with frustrations over and over again, during the Civil War eventually costing him getting fired from his post.
As terrible as his story sounds, how many times have we failed at things by simply never even doing the thing that we so desperately wanted to do succuming to the fear of failure?
How many times have we said and thought that we were not educated enough, skilled enough, or even good enough to do what it is that we needed to do to move our lives forward?
Have you ever allowed those thoughts to stop you from doing what you wanted to do?
During those moments, we are doing with our lives, what George McClellan did with the battles of the Civil War.
When we do that, we lose the battles of our own lives.
2. The greatest general in the Civil War: Ulysses S. Grant
Ulysses S Grant is a clear and obvious example of how a life can unfold when it is free of fear of failure.
It’s not that he didn’t fear anything. He did have a fear and they were stopping, quitting, and being in inaction.
He hated inaction so much that he appeared to often be heading toward things that would scare most people.
One of my favorite quotes by him says it all.
“Everyone has his superstitions. One of mine has always been when I started to go anywhere, or to do anything, never to turn back or stop until the thing intended was accomplished.” — U.S. Grant
His attention was always on his goal: what he wanted to accomplish not giving power to anything that might disempower him.
His actions of refusal to give up inspired his men. In one of his battles, in the later part of the Civil War, he chose to move forward, having just been defeated terribly.
That decision and action inspired his soldiers to move forward and fight with all they had. Simply watching Grant make a decision to keep going during a hard moment, directed his own men to shift their focus to what they could do, instead of what they couldn’t.
Grant would die the same way as he lived.
Battling a painful throat cancer, determined to finish writing a book, to make sure his wife would have money to live on, wrote and wrote and finally allowed himself to die when he knew he had finished writing his book.
His wife would earn millions in today’s money from his book. She would be provided for, for the rest of her life in comfort.
Grant’s goal was accomplished. Not a bad way for one to live a life.
3. A modern-day example of life without fear of failure: Sara Blakely, the founder of Spanx
Sara Blakely had a childhood that instilled habits that led Ulysses S Grant to win the Civil War.
Every evening Sara’s father asked her “What did you fail in today?” And the disappointment in his eyes would show up if she had nothing to report.
His intention was to help her lose all fear of failure by associating positive emotions with taking action on things that looked beyond her skill.
He was guiding her to mold a powerful habit of stretching and growing herself every day.
The result of his showing her to never fear failure: She is now one of the youngest millionaire entrepreneurs and the founder of Spanx.
If how Sara’s life has turned out because she was taught not to fear failure, is not proof of the benefit of not fearing failure, I am not sure what is.
This post was all about defeating the fear of failure to help you be as successful in your personal and business life as possible.
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