FEAR OF FAILURE – 3 Ways to get over the fear that holds you back.

1. 0:00 – 1:00

   Reframing rejection: J.K. Rowling and why failure is part of success

   1. SZDr. Shadé Zahrai0:00

      I want you to imagine that you're writing your first book. When you finally finish the first three chapters, you're filled with excitement. You send the manuscript off to a publisher and they reject it. So you try another publisher and it's rejected again. You try another, rejected. You reach out to 12 different publishers and all of them reject your manuscript. Do you think that it's at this point you might take it as a sign that maybe you're not destined to become an author? Maybe you're not as good as you thought you were, and maybe you should look to spend your time doing something else. A lot of people would say yes, because every rejection letter from a publisher is like another failure. But if J.K. Rowling decided that 12 failed attempts at finding a publisher to read her first three chapters of Harry Potter meant that she wasn't destined to be an author, we wouldn't have the Harry Potter series and she would have never become the first female billionaire author. So the message here is that failure is an inevitable part of success. As J.K. Rowling said, "It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well

2. 1:00 – 1:31

   What fear of failure is (Atychiphobia) and how it quietly sabotages life

   1. SZDr. Shadé Zahrai1:00

      not have lived at all, in which case you fail by default." But the fact remains that many people have an irrational and a persistent fear of failure. Fun fact, it's actually called Atychiphobia, and it's often the result of life experiences that cause a deep-rooted thought that the worst thing you can do is to fail. And for others, it doesn't have an identifiable source. So in this video, I'll share with you some of the most common reasons why you might fear failure, why that fear is trying to protect you and keep you safe, and essential strategies to work through

3. 1:31 – 2:31

   Risk, uncertainty, and the brain’s drive to avoid “threat”

   1. SZDr. Shadé Zahrai1:31

      it so that it doesn't hold you back. Because if you don't address it, it will sabotage your relationships, your career progression, and your happiness. Hi, I'm Shade Zirai, and I help professionals to hack their careers, overcome their limiting beliefs, and confidently create the extraordinary life they deserve. So let's dive in, and I'm going to start by talking a little about risks, because the reason why so many people hold themselves back is because there is uncertainty around the outcome. There is no way of knowing whether you'll succeed, so there is a risk of failure. But the reality is very simple. Those who take risks are more successful. It's actually a critical business skill. And it's this situation of unknown or uncertainty that we inherently struggle with. We find uncertainty stressful, and because of this, we actually want to avoid it. We're wired this way. Why? Well, it's to protect ourselves, to keep us safe from the possibility of threat. And by threat, of course, I mean the threat of failing. When

4. 2:31 – 3:02

   How fear keeps you stuck: avoiding opportunities and staying in the comfort zone

   1. SZDr. Shadé Zahrai2:31

      there is a chance that something won't work out, it keeps many people stuck, stagnant, paralyzed. It prevents them from putting their hand up for new opportunities, from trying new things, taking on new roles, experimenting, and stepping outside of their comfort zone. And the really interesting part is that often this fear of failure, it isn't even about the failure part at all. One main reason why many of us fear failure is because of the negative emotion that we've associated with failure, the emotional pain that we think that we'll experience.

5. 3:02 – 3:33

   The real driver: shame, judgment, and why social pain feels physical

   1. SZDr. Shadé Zahrai3:02

      And it's often because of how we think others will view us, their negative assessments of us, their judgments. So we take this on ourselves and we try to avoid it. It's almost like we experience the shame and humiliation just from thinking about failing. And here's the thing, social judgment can be a really powerful motivator because it's seen as a form of social rejection. We know from neuroscience research using brain scans that social rejection and physical pain have the same underlying processing systems in the brain. They hurt.

6. 3:33 – 4:03

   Where it starts: childhood reinforcement, conditional love, and perfectionism

   1. SZDr. Shadé Zahrai3:33

      And when we're talking about emotional pain here, we're talking about hurting our ego. So where did your fear of failure actually come from? Well, it's most likely a result of the earliest experiences that you had in the first seven years of your life when you were forming your sense of self and based on the relationships that you had with your parents. If you had parents who provided inconsistent reinforcement or who withheld love unless you reached a certain standard of performance, you internalize the view that you're only as good as your performance and what you

7. 4:03 – 5:03

   Mindset shift #1: Accept failure as normal and reappraise risk as growth

   1. SZDr. Shadé Zahrai4:03

      deliver. So you develop a deep-rooted fear of failing because it has a direct impact on your sense of self-worth. If you're a perfectionist, you'd absolutely relate to this because perfectionism and fear of failure are really closely linked. So I always like to look at some of the psychology and the underlying reasons why we do certain things before we go into solution mode. And there are three simple mindset shifts that I want to share when it comes to overcoming the fear of failure you might have. First, it's knowing that every risk has the potential of failure, so we have to get used to it. Failure is a part of life. By definition, there's no way to guarantee that a risk will ever work out. We also know that no great success was ever achieved without failure. That's how we've developed as humans. That's how we discover new things and advance in science and technology. Our civilization is based on failure and, importantly, what has been learned from a failure. It comes down to something called cognitive appraisal, which is how you appraise or

8. 5:03 – 6:03

   Why procrastination happens: emotion avoidance + CBT-style “baby steps” exposure

   1. SZDr. Shadé Zahrai5:03

      interpret a situation. Are you appraising it as a threat? "Oh, no, I'm going to fail." Or as an opportunity? "This is an opportunity for growth regardless of the outcome." If you're fearful of failure, you'll often procrastinate from starting. And the real reason why we procrastinate isn't because we're lazy or we lack discipline. It's actually because we are avoiding a negative emotion that we've associated with the task. You avoid the possible pain, the shame, the guilt. So take time to become aware of your inner voice and what you're telling yourself. Ask yourself, "What am I avoiding? What emotion am I trying to escape from?" Then ask, "Do I need to be protected here? How can I see this as an opportunity to grow?" Then take tiny baby steps in the right direction. This helps us to desensitize ourselves to it. It's based on cognitive behavioral therapy, which suggests that when we fear something, we avoid it. But by gradually increasing exposure to the thing that you fear, your brain and nervous system desensitizes and you eventually

9. 6:03 – 7:04

   Mindset shift #2: De-personalize failure and practice self-compassion

   1. SZDr. Shadé Zahrai6:03

      overcome the fear. So this could be a useful place to start. Next, you want to welcome it and take the emotion out of it. For many people, if they fail at something, they internally attribute the failure. They blame themselves. They personalize. And this is linked to having a strong inner critic. They allow it to reinforce a belief that they are somehow a failure, that they are deficient, that they're not enough, they're inadequate. And sometimes we build it up so much in our minds and give it more importance than it deserves. We catastrophize. And as I always say, thoughts are not facts, yet we treat them as though they are. So we need to acknowledge that this fear is often created in our minds by our thoughts. We fear what we don't know, and then we allow it to strip us of our confidence and prevent us from taking actions that could actually help us succeed. A really important part here is self-compassion and acknowledging that we aren't perfect. No one is. Normalizing vulnerability, normalizing the sharing of stories when we messed up, made a bad

10. 7:04 – 8:35

    Mindset shift #3: Build a ‘risk-taking muscle’ with enlightened risks

    1. SZDr. Shadé Zahrai7:04

       decision, made a mistake, this actually gives others the permission to do the same. By opening our arms up to the possibility that things may not work out, and it's okay if they don't, but what did I learn from it, we can start to address the subconscious fear of failure that we have by separating our sense of self-worth from the outcome. And the third strategy is to take enlightened risks. So let's say you want to get physically fit. What's one of the things that you do? Well, you generally go to the gym or you work out, right? In the same way, if you want to work towards overcoming a fear of failure, sometimes it's really effective to actually strengthen your risk-taking muscle and put yourself in situation where there's uncertainty. It's similar to some of the strategies to help you work through perfectionism. Maybe try go for a walk without a map or say yes to something before you feel ready. Now, of course, that doesn't mean taking reckless risks just because you want to conquer your fear of failure. I would give you a high five for the commitment, but I wouldn't actually advise it. Instead, I'd advise you to take what I call enlightened risks. These are risks that you've thought through, that are inspired by a larger vision that you have for yourself and your higher purpose. Ultimately, these risks could take you closer to where you want to go. So even if it doesn't work out, you've learned something new, you've gained a new skill, or you know what not to do next time. Look, I'll be the first to admit that not all of the risks I've taken have worked out, but I learned something from every single one of them. When you can see each of your failures as actually a giant lesson in disguise, it allows

11. 8:35 – 9:08

    Closing: Turning failures into lessons and changing your internal narrative

    1. SZDr. Shadé Zahrai8:35

       you to actually find power and strength from it. So I hope this episode has helped change your mindset when it comes to embracing failure. So much of the fear that you have is because of what you're telling yourself about yourself, which means you can also change the narrative. But you have to first become aware of what's going on and then take steps to work through it. Thanks for tuning in to another episode. I'm Shade Zahrai. I'll see you next time. [upbeat music]

Episode duration: 9:09