Day 68: The ‘Fear of Failure’ Character

The failure character is activated by a single thought where I picture myself as having failed whatever it is I am about to do/considering to do.

For example, when I sit down to write a blog about fear of failure, and a thought instantly pops-up of where I am sitting here at my computer an hour from now with a very poorly written blog with maybe just a paragraph and the writing is not very cohesive, and I am sitting there frustrated and feeling like I have wasted a lot of time within trying to write a blog on fear of failure. If I accept this thought as who I am, then I would think to myself ‘ok, I don’t want to go through that, so I’ll rather not write the blog and see if I can find perhaps another topic that I won’t fail at.’ 

Yet it was just a thought, and from there it totally controlled and directed my behavior, merely by me believing in it and accepting it as valid. So you can see the purpose of the thought is to prevent me from doing something, in this case, from writing a blog about fear of failure, so that instead of walking through the fear, I rather accept the limitation within the belief that ‘I will fail/I can’t do it’, and thus will never actually take the steps to expand and develop myself into being able to do it. I mean, I haven’t even tried, so I can’t possibly know if I would ‘fail’ or not, yet within accepting this single thought, I won’t even try, because ‘what is the point if I’m just going to fail?’ This phrase and others comes up within the backchat response to the initial thought. 

What’s some more of the backchat that I’d participate in? ‘Man, I don’t want to go through that (as the picture of me having failed). ‘I shouldn’t even bother.’ ‘It will just be a waste of time.’ ‘I know I’m just going to fail again anyway.’ ‘Why do I always fail?’ ‘Why am I such a failure?’ ‘Why am I such a fuck-up?’ ‘I just want to give up.’ ‘I’d just rather not do that, I’d rather do something else’ – and then a thought will come up of what I could rather do that I feel like I would not fail at, which is something that I’ve already done, and thus as long as I accept the fear of failure as who I am, I will only ever do that which I’ve already done, which means that I’ll never expand myself but accept myself to remain limited.  

The emotions/feelings that would I’d have come up when I activate and participate in this character of fear of failure would generally be negative experiences where I’d feel depressed, sad, frustrated, self pitying, self anger/hate, disappointment,  anxiety, nervousness. And physically, I’d slouch down and my posture would become slumped as if there’s a huge weight on me, holding me down , which is actually exactly what I’m doing when participating in this character, is holding me down and not allowing myself to see what I can do, and realizing that there is no such thing really as failure, there is only miss-takes, where I’ve missed the take, and thus simply take-again and reassess my approach to the point and see if/where/how I can change/develop/expand to become effective in this point.

Thus, within the example of fearing to fail at writing a blog about fear of failure, if I give in to that thought, then I won’t write the blog, and then I won’t see if I am able to do it effectively,  and if not, to then see/assess where/how I require to develop expand in my approach to the point so that I may be able to do it. Thus, to accept the fear of failure I am creating my own self-fulfilling prophecy, wherein I am ensuring that I never actually do it or attempt that which I fear to fail. Effectively preventing myself from developing and expanding my ability and seeing what it is I actually am capable of, and how I can expand and develop my abilities to go beyond what I can do now. 

I can now look at my life and see where I have participated in this Fear of Failure Character and the limitation I have accepted for myself within that, and not allowing myself to really walk and see what I can do and am capable of in giving myself the opportunity to grow/develop/expand into ‘more’ than what I’ve accepted myself to be within really exploring my actual potential, and really getting to know myself, rather than trapping myself within a thought, a single thought, that has nothing to do with reality. 

And in moments where I would experience ‘failure’ I would then believe that this confirmed the fear of failure, because I had indeed failed after all, and I’d have backchat like ‘see, I was right, I knew I was going to fail’, within this not realizing that I had in fact manifested the experience of failure myself, within already thinking and believing that I was going to fail, and so I would not really apply myself to a task, because I was certain ‘I was going to fail anyway’, and thus was actually the cause of my own ‘failure’ in many cases, and within this not considering that I could approach what I’m doing within the realization that if I have not yet developed an effectiveness with what it is I am setting out to do, that I may not be able to do it effectively the first time, or maybe even for many times, as skills take time to develop. 

Thus, within the fear of Failure Character we Sabotage ourselves to never grow/expand/develop to our utmost potential, but trap ourself in a bubble of reality where in our mind we see ourself as a ‘failure’. So rather burst that bubble and walk in self intimacy, vulnerability and self trust to really get to know oneself and what one can do and walk with oneself in developing and expanding and no longer accepting oneself as a thought that only exists in the mind and has no substance in reality, so that you can be a real being here in substance as the physical.

Self Forgiveness and Corrective Statements to assist and support in the deconstructing of the Fear of Failure Character will be walked in the post come.