Causes of Fear of Failure

Causes of Fear of Failure

Fear of failure can be attributed to various things ranging from Insecurity/ lack of confidence, childhood issue, deciphobia, perfectionism, past trauma and experience; just to name a few.

Sometimes most people feel insecure, but some people feel insecure all the time. Lack of self-confidence or not feeling good enough about oneself causes them to feel insecure. Trying a new task, developing appetite and passion for the new task, visualizing yourself the way you want to see a better you, affirm yourself, question your inner critic, and set yourself up to starting and running a successful business to create wealth.

Childhood issues can cause fear of failure in adults. Some children who were constantly undermined by unsupportive parents carry fear of failure with them into adulthood. This situation allows them to build negative scenarios in their head early in life, triggering fear of failure. This debilitating anxiety experienced as children affected their test-taking, sports/spelling contests and recitals in school. As adults, they carry this experience with them. Changing one’s attitude about fear of failure is not that simple but takes a simple understanding, that we inherit both the biological and social traits from our parents.

If our parents were those who see failure as enhancing, so the children and if debilitating, so the children. Parents must present their children with optimistic attitude when they struggle instead of picking up on their anxiety.

Deciphobia is a tendency to be afraid of making concrete decisions. It is true that many things compete for our attention in life daily, causing confusion and forcing us to lose focus. Those suffering from deciphobia procrastinate a lot and fail to make decisions, if any, haphazardly. We have seen brides or grooms running away from committing to their marriage. Perhaps there were things left undone or unresolved, they cannot make decisions and live with because we are going to fail. We are going to fail in life, we might as well fail fast and learn from it. Better than indecision. Grow appetite for risks, decide/start a business, fail/learn from it and succeed.

Perfectionism is a personality trait that strives for flawlessness in performances. Those who suffer it, don’t see themselves doing something unless what they do is seen as perfect to others. Avoid being overly critical of yourself and thinking that everything must click into place before you start a business. How others evaluate your performance may or may not matter. Let the great motivator be your driving force to starting a business instead of allowing the inhibitor stand on your way.

Past trauma/experience include all the hurtful things that happened to and around us in the past. This experience allows negative walls erected around us mentally and powerful enough to keep positive things from us outside the erected walls. First thing new entrants into the business world must do is conduct a personal SWOT analysis to assess and keep track of their strength, weakness, opportunity and threat and place them in view. This analysis can drastically mitigate the fear of failure and motivate instead of inhibit one from starting a business.