Are You Plagued by FoF Disease?

I must admit, through the years I’ve had my bouts with this dreaded disease. And there are still times, even while doing this affiliate marketing thing, that FoF rears its ugly head again.

What is FoF disease?

You’ve never heard of it?

It’s a sneaky, heinous thing that stops many good people dead in their tracks. Well-intentioned people who get ground to a halt before they ever really get moving.

FoF can show up in different ways depending on the person it infects.

FoF—Fear of Failure—is deadly to your dreams. But the good news is this: it can be cured. It doesn’t have to keep you from the success you desire.

Symptoms of FoF (Fear of Failure)

Here are some of the symptoms or roadblocks people might experience when dealing with FoF:

• I’m not smart enough or don’t have the right education.
• My family has never been successful. Why should I think I can be?
• I have too many other things to do.
• It’s just too hard or takes too much time.
• If only I had ______. (You can fill in your own blank.)
• Only other people have the right to be successful.
• I don’t think I can really do it.
• And one of my personal “favorites” that I’ve wrestled with:
  What if it doesn’t work and just costs me more money or time?
  Or… what if it DOES work—how will I ever keep up with it?

There are many things we tell ourselves about why we can’t do something. But look at the list above. How many of them are “I” statements?

Most of them are things we tell ourselves that simply aren’t true.

What Can We Do About FoF?

First, we have to start telling ourselves the truth.

• If you think you don’t know enough, figure out what you need to learn and start learning it.
• If you think your family has never been successful, remind yourself that you are not chained to your family history. You can be successful.
• Take each negative statement and turn it around into a positive, honest reason why you can and will succeed.

Is it magic? No.
But it changes your posture from stuck to moving forward.

People Who Refused to Give Up

Here are some great examples of people who didn’t let FoF win.

Thomas Edison

Thomas Edison is often credited with inventing the light bulb. In reality, the light bulb already existed—but Edison perfected the filament to make bulbs last longer and work better.

It took him over 1,000 unsuccessful attempts before he came up with the version that changed the world.

He didn’t count those as failures. He called them “1,000 ways that won’t work.”

If he had stopped and labeled himself a failure, we might not have had the kind of lighting we’ve enjoyed for so many decades.

Colonel Sanders

Colonel Harland Sanders of Kentucky Fried Chicken “failed” many times before KFC ever existed.

He failed as a lawyer, an insurance salesman, a lamp salesman, and a tire salesman. By age 17, he had already lost four jobs. There were many other jobs and professions that didn’t work out for him.

I remember hearing a story once (probably on Paul Harvey’s The Rest of the Story). Harland Sanders became so despondent about life that he decided to commit suicide. His plan was to ram his car into a big steel bridge.

On the way there… his car ran out of gas.

As dark as that moment was, I always found it a little ironic: he even “failed” at killing himself.

The thing is—he didn’t give up after that.

He started selling his now-famous chicken out of a gas station. When the road going past the station closed, he sold his chicken out of the trunk of his car.

Eventually he opened a real restaurant again, and from there grew the company we now know as KFC.

And none of this success happened early in his life. He didn’t start selling chicken until he was in his mid-60s.

So no—you are never too old to start being successful.

WD-40

There’s a product many of us use regularly when we have stuck bolts or need something to move smoothly: that great lubricator, WD-40.

But did you know the people developing it almost gave up?

Their first 39 attempts at the formula were failures. They decided they’d only try a couple more times.

The 40th time, it worked.

And that’s literally where the name came from. They didn’t know what to call it, so they named it what it was:

Water Displacement formula 40 — WD-40.

Don’t Let FoF Win

So don’t give up.

Keep plugging away. Step by step. Article by article. Little action after little action.

You’ll find yourself steadily moving closer to the success you desire—even if FoF still whispers in your ear now and then.

You’re not alone in the struggle. But you do get to choose whether Fear of Failure is the driver… or just noisy backseat chatter you’ve learned to ignore.

Keep going.

What about you?

Have you ever battled FoF in your own journey — whether here at WA or somewhere else in life?
I’d love to hear one “Fear of Failure” thought you’ve had to push past, and what helped you keep going.

Mike G