How To Overcome Your Fear Of Failure

When Thomas Edison was trying to invent the lightbulb, he went through over 10,000 prototypes that didn't work before he finally got it right.

Later, when Edison was asked about his 10,000 failures, he said this:

“I have not failed 10,000 times. I have not failed once. I have succeeded in proving that those 10,000 ways will not work. When I have eliminated the ways that will not work, I will find the way that will work.”

Edison went on to become one of the most well-known and prolific serial inventors in history.

The last part of Edison's quote is often left out, but it's the most important: “When I have eliminated the ways that will not work, I will find the way that will work.” Why is that significant?

It shows that for each prototype of the lightbulb that didn't work, Edison didn't view it as failure. He viewed it as feedback.

What was it that made it possible for Edison to eventually succeed in inventing the lightbulb? Was it his scientific brilliance? Only partly.

It was his mindset. His mindset allowed him to reframe failure as feedback.

From that feedback he was then able to course-correct and eventually succeed.

His mindset allowed him to be relentless in the pursuit of his goal and persist until he accomplished it.

Without that mindset, Edison would probably not have conducted even 10 experiments let alone 10,000.

Most of us have been conditioned that failure is bad. It's deeply embedded in our culture. We don't take risks for fear of failure. We think that failure is final and it means the end of our dreams.

The problem we have with failure is not necessarily in the fact that something hasn't worked out the way we wanted it to. It's in the feelings wrapped up around that failure.

If we try something and we don't get the result we want, we feel like we've failed. We think it means something deeper about us, that we're inadequate or inferior in some way, that we're not good enough, that there's something wrong with us.

We feel ashamed and take that one problem and globalise it to our whole identity.

This over-identification with failure can totally immobilise us. We can feel so discouraged that we never try again and give up on our dream completely.

Contrast that with what scientists do. What do scientists do?

A scientist will have a hypothesis, an idea, and then they design an experiment to test that idea to see if it works.

When an experiment doesn't turn out the way the scientist expects, they don't give up doing science because the experiment was a failure. They actually welcome it!

They don't take it personally. They don't think they're not talented enough to do science any more.

They don't see the experiment as a failure. They see it as feedback.

As you're taking action to build your dream, become like a scientist, a neutral observer.

Develop detachment to the outcome. You're experimenting.

One of my mentors says to expect that only one in five experiments will go as you planned. One in five is 20%. So if you expect to only have a 20% success rate, that means you expect an 80% failure rate.

80% of the time, things won't turn out the way you plan. If I tell you to expect to fail 80% of the time, you probably think that's wasted time.

But that 80% of the time that we're failing is actually essential to our success. Like I said, if you don't get the outcome you want when you take an action, it's not failure – it's feedback.

It's through that process of getting regular feedback that we're able to course-correct, to reiterate, and gradually improve.

Every failure is an opportunity to learn something. When you learn the lesson, failure ceases to exist.

Remember what Thomas Edison said about inventing the light bulb. He didn't fail 10,000 times. He found 10,000 ways to not invent the light bulb. He reframed it. He looked at the lessons he learned.

When you realise that you got a valuable lesson out of an experience that you wouldn't have otherwise gotten, you stop having a lot of the limitations that come from the feeling of failure.

If you're trying to avoid failure, you're also unintentionally avoiding success.

You're probably familiar with the saying “Failure is not an option.”

If failure is not an option, then neither is success.

Failure and success are two sides of the same coin. You can't have one without the other.

If you're not taking the risk and potentially failing, you're not getting the feedback and learning the lessons to improve and move forward.

In fact, there's no way to succeed without failing. The road to success is paved with failure. The more you go after your dreams, the more you will fail, so you need to get comfortable with the idea of failure.

Counter-intuitively, the most successful people are often the ones who haven't avoided failure, they've actually failed the most. Edison is a great example.

You have to put yourself out there. Doubt kills more dreams than failure ever will. The real failure is not trying and missing opportunities, never having the experience, and never learning the lesson.

Failure is not final. Failure is feedback.

If you take action and things don't work out the way you wanted, instead of wallowing in self-pity or complaining or beating yourself up about what you could have done, focus on the lesson to be learned and keep moving forward.