Redefining failure to overcome the fear of failure

 

 

On the subject of "fear of failure in selling our ideas or solutions to others" in a professional setup, last week, we discussed the reason for fear and its impact. We listed the following approach to overcome it.

1. Redefine the failure
2. Imposing Logical / reasoning over emotions
3. Learning attitude

 Let us further understand each approach
 
Redefine the failure:
 
Smart people are using this approach to redefine their success or failure in any event when they have a fear of failure and progressing further.
 
For example,

let us consider the following situation.
 
Your organization has shortlisted you and other colleagues to elevate to the higher roles and assigned a challenging task that you have not done so far. To get finalized, you need to go through the assessment and interview. You have fear inside whether you will succeed in the new role. You have a dilemma to go for an interview or not.
 
In this situation, how you define your success or failure will help you to overcome the fear and progress to the next step.
 
Completing the new assignment will be a function of many factors like team dynamics and changes in external and internal business environments. Those factors may not be in your control. At this moment, you have control only over how you do in the assessment and interview process.

In this kind of situation, smart people redefine their success in such a way that "doing well in the interview is success" at the moment. Again in the next step, they redefine their success or failure in new assignments as how they perform well using the experience and giving their best. That mindset and focus on their performance will help them navigate the interview process well and to the next step.
 
This way of redefining will help to manage the fear factors.
  
You can relate this approach to M.S Dhoni's style of leadership. When captaincy came to him to lead the Indian cricket team, someone asked him whether he feared failure in the new role. He responded that "success or failure in a cricket match depends on how other players do their job; let me focus on what i can do best during the game." 
 
We do instill that mindset of defining success or failure in any event.
 
To sum up,
 

• Effective people break up the event in multiple steps.
• They focus on their performance/influence in each step and ignore the external force. 
• That mindset of redefining the success or failure helps them manage the fear of failure.

 
Let us discuss other approaches next week.
 
Have a great week ahead.