How to Deal With a Fear of Failure in Business

byverna8767

2K followers

Updated 6 years ago

We all have dreams of success, but many times we push our dreams away because we are afraid of possible failure. Every time we think about going for that gold ring, fear grabs hold, and we find another excuse to put our dreams aside once more.

We must learn how to deal with a fear of failure in business. All of us entrepreneurs had that gripping fear of failing that grabs hold of us, especially when we first started out in business. It is this fear of failing that can prevent us from the success that is just within our reach.

Many affiliate marketers have ventured into online businesses and are making a substantial income. Others have gone on to be some of the top marketers.

However, some entrepreneurs who have great ideas and business plans fail due to the lack of knowledge. There are others that fail in business only because they were too afraid to take a risk.

Fears Can Influence Our Decisions

Most of us harbor several fears, and we do not like to admit it. We let our fears control and influence many of our decisions. Whether it is fear of trying new things or just fear of change, we tend to stick to familiar situations even though they are not favorable to us. You can check out my prior article, How to Leave Your Comfort Zone Behind.

When these fears arise within the marketer’s mind, it results in procrastination and frustration. Thoughts of failure are all the marketer can see. What makes us so afraid to fail?

Fear keeps us from taking action that could put us on the track to being successful in our business. It stops us from trying new things because we think we don’t know enough.

Prepare Yourself for the Possibility of Failure

None of us want to consider even the slightest possibility of failing when we start a new business. Think of it this way. It’s like life insurance. We don’t want to consider our death either, but we plan for it anyway.

It’s the same for business. We should make plans for handling specific situations in case they arise. One of those situations is a failure.

We go into business thinking and wanting our business to be successful, but if the worse should happen, we are unprepared to recover from a failure.

So, when you start your business, you should also prepare a contingency plan for failure. It is essential to make yourself mentally prepared for breakdowns in the industry. If a disruption happens, you can better handle it.

Don’t Let Emotions Dictate Decisions

I’m sure you have heard that when something negative or tragic happens to you, you should never make important decisions when you are under emotional stress. It is also true in business.

Don’t wait until the occurrence of failure jumps into your path and then try to figure out what to do. Trying to handle it at the time of the negative impact, could compound the incident of the failure.

Even if immediate action is required of you after something in your business has failed, give yourself at least an hour to digest what has happened. Take a moment to collect your thoughts and analyze the situation.

If time permits, talk to a partner or someone else in the business who you can collaborate with to come up with a solution.

Making emotional decisions can result in an even more significant problem to have to fix.

Reassess Your Circumstances

When something fails within your business, take the time to reassess the issue instead of putting it off. Anytime a failure occurs in your business; there are four questions you will need to be answered.

• What was the reason you failed?
• How do you feel about the failure?
• What steps should you take to resolve the failure?
• What did you learn from the failure?

Knowing the reason for your failure in business is very important. If the incident is massive or long-term, you definitely should reevaluate whether you are putting forth the necessary effort or whether you have a real passion for the business.

If you are unable to answer these questions, you will repeat the failures in business. The answers will be useful because they will begin to build a structure foundation to turn the failure into a success.

Your Stepping Stones to Success

Consider failure as a stepping stone toward your success, and we have to learn from our failures and move forward. We should learn from our failures, but for some reason that is one of the most challenging things to do.

It’s not easy to answer those four difficult questions, because we may not be able to handle the answers that we find. However, learning from our mistakes will keep us from repeating them.

Be honest with yourself and don’t think about all the time you have already devoted to the failing business. Consider things as they currently are to make a right decision about where you want to go with your company or whether you want to continue at all.

Build a Sturdy Support System

Encircle yourself with people who will be there for you when things are not going well for your business. Being around supportive friends and business networks can help you not feel so frustrated or keep you from segregating yourself from those who are there to support you.

Also, these groups of people, especially your business network, can help you sort out information to assist you in making a right decision or provide advice regarding some crucial decisions you need to make.

Know What Is Ahead of You

Anyone who goes into business must face the fact that there are going to be failures in the industry. I don’t think there has been one entrepreneur who didn’t face failure at one time or another. It’s a fact of doing business. Although we would like for it to happen, things don’t go like clockwork as much as we want them to go.

If you are a person who always expects things to go right or like to live only on the safe side, you probably don’t handle failure very well. We all have ups and downs in our lives.

However, if you always have the ups, you will never learn how to handle the downs. If you can’t manage the downsides, starting a business may not be the best thing for you to do.

Do your due diligence and research starting your own business because you should learn what it takes. Understand what will be ahead of you so you will be able to set appropriate expectations.

Failure in Business Is Not a Personal Assault

Failing is merely a part of life so don’t take it as a personal assault against you. Failing doesn’t mean you have to regret even starting your business. It doesn’t indicate that it is your destiny to be a failure in business.

Don’t be hard on yourself. If you fall, get back up again. Show yourself that you can handle taking a risk. Starting a business is more than a notion. It takes a tough person to move forward and make the challenge.

You had the strength to take the risk, and you accepted the responsibility. That is a necessary element to handle a failure in business. Not looking for someone else to blame is a stand-up move on your part. If you can admit the mistakes and move on, you’ve already made the first step to turning things around.

Conclusion

Intellectually, we all know and understand that failure is a part of life. Some of us may even recognize that failing can also help us to grow. Nonetheless, we still fear failure and find it difficult to move on from it. We let it wreck us.

We need to find ways to separate the failure from our identity. Many times, we blur the two together even though they are entirely separate. When we meld our failure with our character, we can blow up our self-confidence and our sense of worth.

Before Thomas Edison finally invented the light bulb, he failed 10,000 times. However, he never quit trying.

Failing in business isn’t a good feeling, but experiencing failure is worth it if you handle it with positivity and turn it around to success. After a failure in business, we should put our personalities away and apply the information we learned the hard way from failing.

We can’t walk a straight line to success. There are bumps and turns and plenty of

potholes along the way. Each challenge you face in business is only another opportunity.

Learning how to deal with a failure in business is a must do task. Don’t be afraid to try new things. Some projects will be successful and some projects will not. The most important take away from this is that you can’t be scared to try.

Use your business failures to inspire you rather than defeat you. Start over again. You learned some lessons because you failed at something. I always say that “If you quit, you can’t win.” You can always begin again.

Have you had any failures in business that you can share with us? If you have, I would love to hear how you made it out.

Thanks for taking the time from your busy day to check out my post.

I welcome all “Likes”!

Cheers,

Verna