Failure!
The end!
We learned from a very young age that failure is the end. If you failed, go home and lick your wounds.
Pray that tomorrow will be a better day and you won’t fail.
Better to play it safe than take a chance and fail.
Painful.
No one likes to fail.
Some avoid failure like the plague.
Others welcome failure!
Think about this: a two year fails much more than a 20 year old.
If a baby was afraid of failure, she or he would never walk. Those weeks spent crashing to the floor on unsteady legs would never happen.
It takes fall after fall after fall for a baby to learn to walk.
How should it be any different for an adult learning a new skill or a career?
I am preaching to the choir as I am allergic to failure. It gives me mental hives!
I will go to extraordinary lengths to avoid failure.
Like not attempting something new.
Like spend endless hours studying up on a new task or activity.
Like putting a toe in to the water by trying something new just a little bit.
You cannot really succeed in life until you take big risks.
I am not talking about risking your life, health, or finances (although some do that).
I am talking about taking risks where you may end up looking like an idiot! I am an expert in making myself looking like an idiot. I can tell you that after the first 100 times of looking like an idiot, failure is not as painful!
You cannot grow in your career or other areas in your life until you fail. Over. and Over. and Over again. It will hurt. It will hurt bad. You will be greatly embarrassed. You will be humiliated. And if you fail enough times, you will become a winner.
Practice make make us perfect but we will fail many times while we are practicing.
My parents did not want to do anything that might end up in failure. They missed out in all kinds of great experiences because they were afraid to look stupid.
When I first started speaking in public in my teens, I embarrassed myself over and over again and looked stupid. Over time, I got more comfortable speaking on front of people and I found a magical formula for feeling comfortable. Give up trying to be perfect. Once I was willing to look stupid in front of others, it calmed me down and I was able to relax. Once relaxed in public, my presentations got better and everyone had a great time.
Go ahead and be risky. You will be embarrassed. You will eventually succeed.