Use Your Imagination To Overcome Fear of Failure
Fear of failure is one of the most common obstacles that holds the majority of people back from taking the steps necessary to dramatically improve their lives.
After all, improving a life involves change. Change can be uncomfortable and unfamiliar.
Avoiding the risk of failure, by staying where you are, offers the promise of no change. No change means you can hang out a little longer in the cozy little place called, “The Comfort Zone.”
Using the power of your imagination is an enjoyable and remarkably effective way to eliminate those fears. The power of imagination has been used for many years by millions to induce a state of relaxation. Imagination can be used not only to eliminate a fear of failure, but to move you on into creating the improvements you’ve only dreamed of before.
For example, notice what happens if you vividly imagine yourself lying on a beach in the warm sun. Notice the warmth of the sand under you. Listen to the sound of the surf as the waves make their way onto the beach, then back into the ocean. There can also be sounds of sea gulls off in the distance.
If you really get good at this, you can feel a breeze coming in off the ocean and brushing along your face. You can even smell the ocean smells of the salt water.
When you really imagine being there, you’ll also notice how your body begins to relax relatively quickly. In fact, your blood pressure will actually lower and your breathing will become slower and deeper.
It’s an amazing ability that you carry with you wherever you go. Believe it or not, it’s the same ability that generated your fear of failure in the first place!
If you imagine failing and everything being horrible and falling apart, who wouldn’t feel afraid of failure? Just the process of imagining it can create the fear. That same power can be used to eliminate the fear.
The first step in eliminating the fear of failure is to write out a statement that summarizes the problem. For example, your statement may be something like, “I’m afraid to take the next step toward achieving my goal because I might fail.”
Then zero in on the word, “afraid.” That’s the only word in the sentence that really needs to change. Identify how afraid you are that you might fail. Rate it on a zero to ten scale. Zero means you have no fear of failure at all. Ten means your fear is the worst possible. It couldn’t be any worse, literally.
There are basically two ways to proceed. One is to use your imagination to alter how you feel about failure; the other is to simply eliminate the fear of failure. Decide which of these you think is the bigger issue.
Is it that you need to be OK with failure, or to simply eliminate the fear of failure itself?
For the sake of this example, let’s say it’s to eliminate the fear of failure itself. Therefore, the next step is to ask yourself how you’d rather feel. For most of those with whom I’ve worked, it boils down to one of the 3 C’s; Calm, Confident, or Courageous.
Pick a specific, positive replacement. How would you like to feel as you take that next step toward your goal? Let’s say it’s calm and confident.
Imagine how calm feels. Imagine how being confident feels. A lot of people protest at this point and say something like, “But I don’t feel calm and confident right now!” If it wasn’t for someone being there to coach them, that’s as far as they’d get.
Of course you don’t feel calm and confident right now. That’s why you’re about to employ the power of imagination!
If you can imagine feeling a fear of failure, you can imagine feeling calm and confident as you proceed to your next step, can you not?
Saying the words ‘calm’ and ‘confident’ over and over can actually begin to bring forth feelings of calm and confidence. Zoom in and imagine feeling calm and confident as you imagine taking each little step toward your goal.
Include the sounds, smells, textures, colors, and any other sensations that would be involved with being calm and confident as you move forward. Hold the imagination of those senses even if it’s only for a few seconds.
A really helpful way to boost the effectiveness of this is to write out what you’re imagining on a piece of paper. Write it out in great detail. Then, record it onto your phone or a digital recorder.
Play it back several times a day. Really get into imagining it as if it’s happening in real time. There’s nothing to lose. You’re just imagining it.
Believe it or not, this process will actually begin to change your physiology. Keep it up several times per day. Continue to monitor your zero to ten scale regularly.
Each day, measure how afraid of failure you are today. The zero to ten scale can also be used to measure how calm and confident you feel about taking any steps toward your goal. How calm and confident are you today?
If it doesn’t reduce to a complete zero, ask yourself what benefit you might give up if you replaced fear of failure with being calm and confident. What’s the price you might have to pay for success?
Some people are just as afraid of success as they are of failure. Being successful can involve giving up some benefit of going nowhere, or it can have a cost attached to it that some are not willing to pay. It could also put a strain on their sense of identity, if their identity is based on avoiding anything uncomfortable.
Use the same power of imagination to reduce the fear of success and replace it with something better.
The power of imagination can be used to shift out of any negative emotion and into a positive state. It can also be used to overcome any obstacle on your path to success. Using it on a daily basis will get your brain muscles more and more accustomed to success.
To your success!
John Mason
