The Fear of Not Knowing What Your Failures May CauseFailure is a part of life, we all know that, and we’ve all failed at something and it never feels good. That’s why the thought of failing again is not a nice feeling.

Yet, what often keeps us up at night isn’t just the fear of failing, it’s the dread of what might come next. What will that failure cause? Will it wreck everything you have worked so hard for? Will it cost you your reputation? Will you be able to hold your head up again?

This type of fear isn’t just about making a mistake, it’s about the unknown consequences that may follow. What will people think of you? What if this one mistake will make everything fall apart? Your work, your relationship, your life. All these fears and what ifs can be suffocating.

So, while we all know that failure can be painful and inevitable, and that no one reaches success without stumbling along the way, the fear of what a failure may cause down the track is often far worse than the initial fallout.

Why We Fear What The Fail May Bring

If you think back to past fails, who was your harshest critic? Was it you? Usually when we fail, our inner critic tends to be very unkind to us! For example, do you hear yours saying things like, ‘You are such an idiot! Why are you so stupid?’ Or perhaps, ‘You should have known you couldn’t do it, so why did you try?’

Your inner critic is one of the biggest reasons you might worry about failing! Any failure will simply confirm your worst fears about yourself. Plus, of course there’s the external pressures. Perhaps you don’t have a good support system and the people around you are just as berating as yourself.

We live in a world where success is celebrated and mistakes are magnified, so the fear of being judged by the people around us feels awful. Will they think less of you? Will they think you’re an idiot, just like you think you are?

This fear of disappointing others can be deadly to your self-esteem, and let’s not forget the practical fears. What if your failure leads to financial ruin? What if your partner leaves you?

These worries can grow where it can feel like there’s no way out.

Are Your Fears Imagined or Real?

Take a moment to reflect on a mistake you’ve made in the past. Think back to how it felt. Did it seem like your world was going to end? Maybe you were so consumed at the time by all the things you thought could go wrong, imagining worst case scenarios, but was it really as bad as you feared? Did the aftermath match your worst case scenarios?

The reason I ask, is because often our fears of failure aren’t rooted in reality but in our perception. We build up the worst-case scenarios imaginable in our mind, picturing a fallout that may never happen.

It’s easy to imagine the worst! However, the truth is, our imagination can exaggerate the actual effect. Plus, what might have felt terribly upsetting at the time, often fades over time.

Now I want you to consider this. If the aftermath truly was difficult, how much of that difficulty came from the actual consequences of your mistake, and how much came from the story your inner critic told you? Sometimes, our perception of failure isn’t what really happened. We can blow things out of proportion. So you have to recognize fact from fiction. Your fiction.

So the next time fear of failure takes a hold of you, stop for a second and ask yourself, ‘Is this fear based on real evidence, or is it a story I’m telling myself?’

Now you’ve had time to think about some of your worst case scenarios, was the aftermath worse than the fail? The fear of failure’s aftermath often holds us back more than the failure itself ever could! So don’t spend time worrying about all the what ifs. If you do, you will be making up negative stories!

Failure isn’t the end, it’s part of your never-ending story, and as with any good story, those twists and turns make it more interesting and unique to you.

So don’t fear the unknown aftermath of any failure. Learn to fail gracefully and trust yourself. You will fail again because life is like that, it’s just you can smile when you make up a good story ending!