The Haunted Cost of Failure: Why It Feels Like a Trick Without A Treat
Ever do something so stupid that you don't even want to admit it?
I mean, something so embarrassing, it could ruin your reputation for the rest of your life?
That's the very definition of failure.
Failure is much easier to talk or even joke about when you're twenty years old.
At age twenty you can do stupid career things and have a stupid business, quit your perfectly respectable job to pursue something more exciting, or just spend six months learning a skill that you will never use again before Christmas.
Many people will shake their heads. You may even shake your own.
Then you move on.
But as you get older, the stakes get much higher.
You may have a mortgage, or a family, or a solid career path that won't reset itself the second you try something new.
You might have a reputation you don't want to ruin because it took you ten years to build it.
Suddenly, failure becomes noticeable and highly important.
Welcome back to Fear Factor 2.
Join us as we explore the fears that keep us from making the best life decisions.
This time we're looking at the fear of failure, and how it can feel different as we get older.
Why Failure Hits Different When You're Older
When we're young, it's often easier to take risks.
Not that failure doesn't sting - it certainly can, when you're rejected, embarrassed, financially ruined, or just disappointed with yourself.
But when you're young, the things you lose are often more replaceable.
As we get older, though, one of the biggest fears of failure may change from "this is just really inconvenient" to "that was my life".
A failed experiment in a new workplace can derail a promising career path, a poorly planned business venture can empty your wallet, and a poor decision in a relationship can wreck a family.
And in addition to the material things we stand to lose, as we get older, we often associate ourselves more closely with our skills and competence.
We've spent a lot of years learning how to do the things we do, and we may start to believe that we will never be as good at those things as we were before.
We've also gotten a whole lot better at predicting the worst.
Experience is meant to make us wiser, and sometimes, it does. It also gives us a long list of things that went wrong.
We've been rejected.
We've made stupid decisions.
We've trusted the wrong people.
So when a new opportunity comes around, our brains tend to recall the ways that it could go wrong.
And sometimes, that's just the right amount of caution.
Other times, we build our arguments against trying something new around the things that went wrong in the past.
The important thing is not confusing the questions "what could possibly go wrong?" and "what if everything goes horribly wrong?"
*Sometimes it's better to try something different then not to try at all⬇️
The Problem With Having Something to Prove
Another thing that tends to come with age is the idea that, at some point, we stop taking risks.
This may be because we want to avoid failure in general, but another reason we may feel the need to hold ourselves back is having to prove ourselves.
You don't tend to feel like you're not good enough to go after something exciting when you're twenty.
You may be inexperienced, but you're also just starting to figure out what you want to be when you grow up (even if you are legally grown up already).
You can take that first, horrible, awkward job in the field you want, and nobody will expect more out of you than they'd expect out of anyone else.
As you get older, though, you become more established in your chosen way of life.
You stop seeing new projects in other fields as adventures, and more as embarrassments.
You are now the person who knows what they're doing, who made a living for themselves through sheer willpower.
So now you may want to try something new.
Learn a new musical instrument, start painting, take dance classes, write a book, start a new business in a field unrelated to your own, or just play with a new technology that didn't exist when you were younger.
For a while, you will suck at it.
Not in the charming, youthful and inexperienced way you once did.
Nope.
You will suck at it in the most embarrassing, middle-aged way known to humanity. Bet on that.
And while there's nothing inherently wrong with having to learn a new hobby as an adult, many of us struggle with feeling like we had to "get better" at something.
We've spent years on our careers, learning and perfecting skills we need to succeed.
And now we're in a situation where a lot of those skills probably won't help us much, and we need to get better at something else, slowly and painfully, in front of the eyes of others.
*If you think you can't do something because of fear, you REALLY need to read this!⬇️
When Playing It Safe Becomes the Risk
Avoiding the risk of failure sounds like playing it safe.
Sometimes, it is.
We should be careful with money, and not take unnecessary risks, or ruin perfectly good careers and relationships just because some random person told us: "get out of your comfort zone".
Life is complicated enough without us deliberately looking for more problems to solve.
Although we almost always do, right?
What we tend to forget sometimes is that there's also a risk of not doing something, too.
By avoiding risk-taking behaviors, we protect ourselves from the disappointment of failure and the success of the things we didn't try.
We don't apply for the job we really want because we think we aren't qualified.
We don't put in the effort to develop the project we always wanted to launch, because nobody cared about the preliminary ideas as much as we thought they would.
We don't risk changing anything, because the way things are now might not be great, but at least nothing goes wrong.
Sometimes the safest option isn't quite as safe as it looks.
*Are you stuck in indecision? We'll show you how to get unstuck!⬇️
Failure Doesn't Always Mean You Failed
One of the reasons that failure can sting so much is the tendency that we have to think of it as a personal attack.
The project failed, therefore you're just bad at everything.
The interview was a disaster, therefore you're not qualified for any fields of work that aren't related to whatever that job was.
The relationship ended, because of course you made all the wrong decisions and everything was your fault.
The business was a complete loss, so you should never try new things again.
That is, quite frankly, an unnecessarily harsh legal system to have for one person.
Failure doesn't always define us.
Sometimes, it just tells us something about the wrongness of our idea.
Sometimes, we made the wrong decision.
Sometimes, it was the wrong circumstance or timing, or we just made too many mistakes and it all added up.
Sometimes, it's the worst thing that could have happened.
Sometimes, it's not.
That doesn't make our failure any less painful or expensive or embarrassing.
It just means that, in addition to being all of those things, it's also an opportunity to learn.
Learning what didn't work.
Learning why it didn't work.
Learning what should be done differently in the future.
Even if it is the worst thing that could have happened, that doesn't make it any less of an opportunity to learn.
*Learning what's holding you back is the key to winning! Everything you need to know is down below!⬇️
What Are We Actually Afraid Of?
This is an important question.
When it comes to our own fears, often the most important thing to think about is what the worst case scenario would really be.
Do we really fear losing money in an unnecessary risk, or just disappointment in our own abilities?
Do we fear embarrassment or rejection, or something else?
Are we afraid of losing a big opportunity, or are we afraid that the failure will somehow define us?
Each fear has its own resolution.
If we fear losing financial assets in a risky venture, we can put limits on our investments to safeguard our earnings.
If we're afraid of embarrassment, we need to remember that nobody cares nearly as much as we think they do.
If we fear disappointment in ourselves or others, we may have to learn how to let go of what we think we deserve.
If we fear defining ourselves by failure, it just means we need to recognize that nobody is good at everything.
The point is, instead of worrying about all the things that could go wrong in our new venture, we need to understand what it is that we're actually afraid of.
*Stressing out about things that are NOT in your control can hold you back from success ⬇️
You Don't Have to Bet the Whole Farm
Sometimes, we may feel that, in order to overcome our fear of failure, we need to take a very drastic step.
We need to make a big life-changing decision and bet everything on it, simply for the opportunity to prove that we weren't wrong to expect success.
That may work, but it's also much more helpful to think in terms of experiments rather than all-or-nothing propositions.
Instead of betting the farm on some random idea, we can start small.
If we want to write a book, we can start writing.
If we want to pursue another career, we can research and test the waters without quitting our stable job just yet.
If we want to start a business, we can try some small experiments and make sure that it's a viable idea before making any huge investments.
If we want to learn something new, we can allow ourselves to be new at something for the first time in a long while.
Small experiments can be very helpful in letting us learn from our mistakes without having to make major life-changing decisions based on them.
And sometimes, once we've done one little experiment, the fear isn't as scary anymore.
*There are simple ways to alleviate stress without a lot of effort ⬇️
Failure Is Not the Opposite of Success
It's often said that failure is a necessary step on the road to success.
There's some truth to that, though it can make for a very easily abused soundbite.
Not every failure leads to a tangible success.
Sometimes, they're just failures.
Neither, however, does every attempt at success fail outright.
Whatever your goal may be, trying something new can open your eyes to what you truly want, what you want to avoid, and what you need in order to achieve what you set out to do.
Sometimes, the most important lesson is "this is just not the right thing for me".
And that's okay, too.
We don't have to make every experience a triumph over failure.
Sometimes, we can simply acknowledge that it didn't work, and then move on to something else.
*Take a moment to look at where you are and where you came from and learn from that ⬇️
The Question We May Need to Ask Ourselves
The biggest threat of failure isn't that we fail.
It's that we let the possibility of it dictate all of our decisions. There is nothing wrong with being cautious. We should listen to the lessons of our own past.
But we shouldn't let those things prevent us from doing new things and taking new chances.
We can protect ourselves without living in constant fear, and we can plan our actions without feeling that uncertainty is always an obstacle to a happy life.
We can recognize our own responsibilities without deciding that they mean our lives can never contain risk, change, or uncertainty.
And maybe, as we get older, we can remember things from a slightly farther remove, and understand the things that matter to us and the things that don't.
We can avoid unnecessary risks that could cost us time, money, and life.
We can know better, so that we won't make the same mistakes more than once.
But we need to remember that embarrassment rarely lasts for long, and that nobody is paying as much attention to our lives as we think they are.
That's not quite a guarantee of happiness, but it's a solid place to start when pursuing something that matters.
Failure can be more expensive as adults. But so can the costs of avoiding it entirely.
We can miss out on opportunities and, sometimes, even the chance to meet a new version of ourselves that we never knew existed.
*Did you miss out on our last article? No problem, we got you covered here! ⬇️
Instead of trying to make ourselves impervious to it, perhaps it's time to learn how to live with the possibility that it will happen.
We can always take the necessary precautions, know what we're risking, and make safer decisions.
But when we're faced with a choice that really matters, we need to make sure that we're willing to take that chance if it's what we really want.
Because, one day, we may be facing a similar decision, and asking not "what if I fail?"
but
"What might I have discovered if I had been willing to try?"
Have you ever asked yourself the question above?
Let's talk about it in the comments.
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