Everyone understands having a fear of failure. It’s something instilled in us from childhood. We’re punished if we do something “wrong.” We’re ridiculed if we try something and we don’t succeed.
Many people don’t understand how they can be afraid of success.
But it’s true.
Success can be just as scary as failure, sometimes for the same reasons.
This blog post is all about the correlations I see between success and failure, and our very human fear of both. It’s also about how we can overcome those fears so we can learn from our failures (which we will all have) and enjoy our successes, large and small
First, let me make something clear. I am not a psychiatrist, a psychologist, or a therapist. I have not studied the human brain in any fashion. I am a marketer. I observe, and play on, human emotion. (Don’t judge, it’s how everyone in marketing makes their living.)
Everything I am going to say in this article, unless it is quoted, is based on my own experience and opinion. Please don’t take this as gospel.
Please do consider what I say here in terms of how you see success and failure, and how your fear of both may be holding you back. This is especially true if you own your own business. Small business owners and entrepreneurs can be insanely hard on themselves. (I’ll talk more about that later.)
How Success and Failure Can Feel the Same
We all have internal fears. This is normal and human. If anyone tells you they’re not afraid of anything, they’re deluded or lying.
Everyone, even the most successful people in the world, has internal fears. Most of these have to do with self-confidence. We all suffer from thoughts like “I’m not good enough to do XYZ” or “What happens if I can’t…”
It is just as scary to imagine success sometimes as it is to imagine failure.
If you’ve ever had a Tarot reading, you’ll know the card in the second to last position in one of the more common layouts is called the “Hopes and Fears” card.
Why are our hopes and fears the same?
Because they’re usually mirror images of each other.
We crave success and all the positive things we think it will bring. But deep down, we know there will be negative aspects as well.
We’re terrified of failing, of being exposed as a fraud or as ‘not good enough.’ Yet failing comes with its own benefits, like being able to look at how you failed and learn from it. Or picking yourself up and trying again (which is scary all by itself.)
Above all, we’re afraid of change. Success and failure both bring change. Sometimes that change can be drastic. For example, there can be as much change in a relationship after you get married as there is if you decide to get divorced.
If there is one thing I’ve learned over the years, it is that change is the one true constant. You can’t avoid it, no matter how hard you try.
And a lot of people do. They refuse to change. They refuse to try something new that would shake up their world. Which in its own way, is an inherent failure.
Why?
That has to do with my next subject.
The Difference Between Success and Failure
I have seen several opinions on this, both in my reading and from my own experiences. I’ll share a few of them here.
One theory on the difference between success and failure is that success involves risk.
I’m sure you’ve heard the saying, “You’ll never know unless you try.”
This is true. You won’t know whether you can do something unless you try.
A lot of people are so afraid of failing, so afraid of change, they’ll never take the first step to find out whether they might succeed.
Deciding to try is a risk in and of itself. If you take that risk, you’ve already achieved a small success, even if you fail in the long run.
For instance, if you audition for a play you may not make it into the cast. But getting up to perform in front of anyone who is going to judge you for any reason is intimidating.
Famous actors talk about how much they hate auditioning, because someone might say “No, you’re not what I want.” When it comes right down to it, the actor hasn’t failed if they aren’t cast for a part. They just don’t fit the image the director had in their mind.
My point is, just by putting in the effort to audition, you’ve succeeded. And you’ve learned something in the process from this perceived failure. You’ve learned how to get up in front of someone and be judged. (Which can be terrifying.)
I think this is one of the big reasons success and failure feel the same. There are small successes hidden inside every failure. You may not feel successful at the time, but because you took a risk and because you learned something by taking the risk, you succeeded.
The converse is also true. Many of us feel like failures, even when we succeed beyond many people’s wildest dreams.
This brings me to my second theory on the difference between success and failure.
Our goals.
Many fantastically successful people still feel like failures.
Why?
Because they haven’t achieved their goals.
Therapists, success coaches, etc. recommend writing down your goals so you can look back later to see if you’ve achieved them.
If you set your goals ridiculously high (which many of us do) or if you’ve achieved so much that you have to stretch your goals even further, it may feel like you’ll never reach the level of success you truly want.
Goals are an incredibly useful way of measuring our success, or failure.
For instance, my goal for today is to get this blog post finished and posted. Not a huge, unachievable goal. Once I’ve done that, I can say I’ve achieved success because I’ve reached my goal.
However, this small goal is part of a much larger goal involving starting a new business venture.
Even though I’ve achieved my goal for today, (which I will have done if you’re reading this on Monday, January 21st, 2019) I still feel like I have a LOOONNNG way to go in hitting that ultimate goal.
I won’t say I feel like an abject failure because I haven’t reached that goal yet. But I don’t feel like a raving success yet, either.
But, as I’ve pointed out, I have achieved a small success. And this small success will lead to other small successes. These will accumulate and finally result in the success of reaching my ultimate goal.
For anyone who is wondering, that ultimate goal is a course to help small business owners build a strong foundation for their businesses, so they achieve the success they’re looking for in the short and long term. (See why I’m writing about success and failure today?)
If you’d like more information about this course, please opt in for the content upgrade at the end of this post and I’ll make sure you find out about the course when it’s ready. (Opt in anyway, there’s some cool stuff that comes along with the content upgrade.)
This brings me to my third theory on success and failure.
Mindset.
This quote from Henry Ford has always struck me as one of the truest statements ever made.
If you believe you can do a thing, you’ll do it.
If you believe you can’t do a thing, you won’t.
Either way, you’re right.
Having a positive mindset may be the most important difference between success and failure.
If you don’t believe you can, if you don’t believe in yourself, you’ll always look for ways to fail, or ways you have failed.
If you do believe you can, if you do believe in yourself, you’ll look for ways to succeed, or for ways you have already succeeded.
We all do both.
I know I regularly look back on my life and find failures left and right.
However, I also see the myriad ways I’ve succeeded. I have even written lists of my accomplishments to show myself how wildly successful I have been.
More importantly, I’ve made an effort to learn from my failures. Even to the point of analyzing them to see where I can improve next time and what I can genuinely consider “my fault” and can control vs. circumstances I have no control over.
I’d like to point out that I’m not talking about the “positive mindset” most of think of when we’re told to “be more positive” as in be more cheerful and happy.
I’m talking about deciding to work toward a positive result instead of a negative one.
We’re all going to have bad days where we hate everything and we’re convinced that everything we touch, fails. Welcome to being human.
To me, the difference is making the effort to change that feeling instead of wallowing in it. Making that effort is what leads you to success, even if they’re small successes at first.
Putting It All Together to Achieve Success
Can I quantify how I’ve achieved success?
Candidly, no.
But I can tell you some of the things I’ve done that have worked. And I can also retell ideas I’ve heard elsewhere and am currently putting to good use myself. (I’ll let you know if they worked later.)
Here are the 5 steps I recommend to achieve success.
1. Take Risks
No really. Take risks and stretch yourself.
In that way of “you’ll never know if you don’t try,” try. Find out if you can. If nothing else, you’ll have an answer and you’ll stop wondering.
I think we can all safely say there have been things we’ve tried in life where we’ve decided that this was a horrible idea and we never want to do it again. (Eating liver comes to mind for me, especially after I found out what it does in 10th grade biology class.)
When you take risks, you do more than answer the question of whether or not you can.
You set yourself up for success or failure (which is a risk in and of itself.) If you succeed, then hey, you did it! Go you! Keep going and see how much more you can achieve.
If you fail, step back and figure out what you learned from this failure. Even if it was “I hated this experience,” you’ll know how to avoid that in the future. You’ll probably learn a lot more than that, which will give you information to use when you take future risks.
2. Assess the Experience
Go beyond, “That was awesome, I want to do that again!” Or “Well, I’ll never do that again.”
Sit down and think about the entire experience. Go through everything good and everything bad about what you’ve done and learn from it.
Military units do this when they’re practicing maneuvers. It helps them look at how they can perform better next time.
Marketing departments do this as well. It really helps to look at a campaign after it’s finished to see what went right, what went wrong and how you can make it work better next time.
3. Set Goals for Yourself
Sit down with a piece of paper and pencil and write down your goals.
As mentioned earlier, this is a highly recommended activity by those “in the know” and studies have shown that people who write their goals down are more likely to reach them. If nothing else, it’s in black and white, where you can go back and read it every once in a while. Once you’ve reached a goal you can cross it off. (Always a good feeling.)
And to go back to point 1, make your goals risky. If your goals are easy to achieve, what is there to motivate you to achieve them?
A goal is something you should have to work to reach. Otherwise, what’s the point?
4. Cultivate a Positive Mindset
Not the “be happy and cheerful” nonsense that many people espouse. If you are happy and cheerful, go you. Nothing wrong with that and we need more happiness in the world. But I don’t want to force you to do that if it’s not how you work.
I’m talking about making the concerted effort to work toward positive results in your life.
Some of this ties into your goal setting. For instance, set goals that make you happy or excite you. More importantly, set goals that matter to you, not to someone else. These are your dreams and aspirations. Don’t let someone else create those for you.
The rest of it does require having a positive attitude and being willing to put in the time and effort.
I have this thing about doing the dishes. I hate doing the dishes, especially if I have to do them by hand.
But once I start doing them, I always find it to be peaceful and meditative. I take the time to listen to the radio, music, or catch up on marketing podcasts. I enjoy the feel of the water on my hands. When I’m done, I always have a feeling of accomplishment. And it’s one more thing I can cross of my list.
When I cultivate that positive attitude toward doing the dishes, or anything else, I am more likely to do it. If I achieve that success, I’m more likely to keep doing it.
This is the “positive mindset” I’m talking about. One where you find the good in whatever it is you’re doing and make it a win, instead of a chore.
When you can work this into every aspect of your life, you’ll have a much easier time being successful, because the small wins will build up and become larger and larger successes.
Silly, I know, but it’s worked for me and for others I know.
5. Measure Your Success
Look back at your life and examine your successes.
Write them all down. (Yes, this part is important.)
Having a record of the times you’ve succeeded really matters, especially when everything feels like it’s falling apart around you. That’s when you take this list out and remind yourself that you have succeeded in the past. (Then you invoke that positive mindset I talked about above.)
As you achieve new successes, add them to your list.
You will always need to set new goals as you reach your old ones. But showing yourself what you’ve achieved will keep your sense of self-worth and accomplishment buoyed up. This is especially important when that new goal seems impossible to reach. You can remind yourself that you’ve done it before, you’ll do it again.
How Does This Matter to Small Business Owners?
Many of us work by ourselves, which can feel like working in a vacuum. There is no outside input on what we’ve achieved, so we don’t know whether we can call ourselves “successful” or not.
This can be incredibly frustrating. It can also cause us to be incredibly hard on ourselves and become our own worst critics. (Especially if no one else is showing us how we’re succeeding.)
Following the steps above will help you feel like you’ve achieved the success you’re looking for. It will also show you where you can improve so you can grow your business into the thriving, profitable entity you want it to be.
I’ve put together a more detailed list of these steps, including clearer instructions on how to act on each of them. Click on the button below to download your copy so you can track your own successes and learn from any failures that may happen along the way.
Again, you’ll also get information on the small business course I’m building, once it’s ready.
I hope this helps you achieve success in your business.
Tell me about your successes, and what you’ve learned from your failures, in the comments below.
I was going to write something lofty and important about being a full-time freelance copywriter or small business person this week. Something that should have helped others to start or run their own small businesses.