561. Overcome Your Fear of Failure and Win

We all know this, that in order to succeed in life, we have to be willing to fail and that we have to overcome this fear of failure. But nobody ever teaches us how, and that’s what I want to talk to you about today. I want to give you six things to consider that will help you to overcome this fear of failure, that will get you moving on achieving the things you want to and creating the life that you want to. What you need to understand is there is nothing wrong with you. The reason you fear failure is because you have a healthy, functioning human brain. But today we’re going to understand that and create what you want in your life. This is Better Than Happy, Episode 561: Overcome Your Fear of Failure and Win.

Welcome to Better Than Happy, the podcast where we transform our lives by transforming ourselves. My name is Jody Moore. In the decade-plus I’ve been working with clients as a Master Certified Coach, I’ve helped tens of thousands of people to become empowered. And from empowered, the things that seemed hard become trivial, and the things that seemed impossible become available, and suddenly, a whole new world of desire and possibility open up to you. And what do you do with that?

Well, that’s the question… what will you do? Let’s find out.

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Hey everybody. Before we get started on today’s episode, I want to tell you about a three-day intensive that I’m teaching here in San Diego in June. It is called Sales School. And it’s perfect for anybody who wants to really up their sales game. I am not only very good at sales and I’ve sold so many things. I don’t even know where to begin. Everything from shoes, women’s shoes and clothing and apparel, to food, to expensive programs, to all of my own stuff ranging from really inexpensive to really high-end. But not only am I good at sales, I’ve trained so many people to sell. I’m very good at teaching people sales. So if you want to master the art of selling, go to JodyMoore.com/sales and check out Sales School. Very intimate group, very hands-on sales program happening in June here in San Diego.

Hey everybody, thanks for joining me today on the podcast. I love talking about this topic. I know it’s a challenging one and it’s easy to say things like, “I know I need to get over my fear of failure.” And it makes for nice motivational quotes and pictures when we talk about being willing to fail. But today I want to get really real and practical with you. I want to talk to you about why it feels so terrifying and how to change that so that you can get moving and create more of what you want in your life.

So the first thing I want to do is get in your head a little bit about what is best-case scenario and worst-case scenario. Okay? Because without slowing it down and examining it, many of us believe on some level that the worst-case scenario is that we fail. How do I know this is true? Because so many of the things that you’re not doing in your life, the action that you’re not taking, is because in many cases you are afraid of failing.

Let’s think about what this looks like, maybe for our kids. Okay? Let’s say I have a son who loves basketball and he desperately wants to play on the basketball team. He’s been dreaming of playing on the high school varsity basketball team for his whole life and now it’s time to try out. And he says, “Mom, I’m so scared. What if I don’t make it on the team?” So much fear comes up sometimes that this kid might say to me, “I’ve decided not to try out because if I don’t make it, it would just be so devastating.” Right? Can you relate to this?

Now, when it comes to getting on the basketball team, it might be easy for you to go, that’s ridiculous. It’s fine if you don’t make it. You got to at least try, right? But I promise you this is what your brain is doing with regards to your own goals. We just have different goals and different stakes and different things that we care about. So when we say things like, I’m just not going to set a goal. This is what adults say to me. I don’t like setting goals because I don’t like being disappointed. And maybe they’ve set a goal and they’ve tried to achieve something and they’ve tried a number of times and they haven’t been successful and so they say, that’s it. I’m done trying to do that thing because I just don’t want to fail anymore. I’m just tired of the disappointment, I’m tired of the failure.

Now, if you make that decision and then you realize, yeah, the desire went away, I no longer desire that thing, I’ve made peace with it, I’m not going to do it, I’ve moved on, I have new ambitions and new goals, then cool. I’m fine with that. But if that doesn’t go away, if you still have the desire and you still have this knocking, right, that happens on your heart, saying I kind of want to do this thing, then we haven’t escaped the pain, we’ve just changed the kind of pain we have. Okay? So your brain thinks that failure is worst-case scenario, and I want to tell that part of your brain that failure is not worst-case scenario.

Let’s talk about what is best-case scenario first and then we’ll talk about worst-case scenario. Best-case scenario is success. Right? Of course that’s ideal. Of course we want our kid to make it on the basketball team. Of course I want your business to succeed. Of course I want you to lose the weight you’re trying to lose. Of course I want you to find the spouse you’re trying to find when you go out there and start dating online. Of course I want you to get pregnant when you’re trying to get pregnant. Of course success is best-case scenario. But next best-case scenario is what many people are calling failure, what you might be calling failure. How could that be next best-case scenario? Because worst-case scenario is not even trying. It’s giving up. It’s never trying in the first place or not trying enough times until you achieve success. That is worst-case scenario.

How do I know? Because look back on your life at anything you regret. It’s because of things that you didn’t try. I want you to imagine yourself on your deathbed looking back at your life. Do you really think you will look back at your life and go, I wish I hadn’t tried so many things? Or is there a better chance that you’ll look back and we know this because of what people really literally say on their deathbeds, right? Is there a better chance that you might look back and go, I wish I would have at least tried. I wish I would have gone all in. I wish I would have gone bigger. I wish I would have played harder, done more. That’s what we regret, is not trying. So best-case scenario success. Next best-case scenario, failure. Third and worst-case scenario is not trying at all or not trying enough times until we get there. Inaction. That is worst-case scenario.

Failure at least brings lessons. Failure brings growth. Failure brings connection with other people. Failure brings skills that maybe we didn’t know we were going to utilize one day in another way. Failure brings experience. Failure brings your own growth. It brings you getting better at negative emotion. It brings the opportunity for you to learn how to connect with yourself or to connect with others. Failure brings still so many amazing things even though it’s not as ideal as success, it’s still much better than inaction which brings stagnation, lack of growth, lack of evolution, lack of connection. You with me? Okay, let’s get that clear in your mind so that when you “fail” because you don’t achieve what you wanted to in the timeline you set out to, you can go, well, that’s next best-case scenario anyway, to success. So I’m proud of me for at least trying. Now let’s go again.

Second thing I want you to think about is the consumption trap that is tricking your brain into thinking that you’re trying. Okay? We are designed for growth. We are designed to be creative, to build things, to have ideas and then execute with those ideas. We are designed to connect with one another and we are designed to contribute in the world. We are designed for all of these things by God, who designed us. And if we aren’t meeting those needs, we will feel frustrated, stagnant, bored, resentful, or some version of unhappy and not fulfilled. Okay?

The problem is we have so many things in our world that we can consume today that we trick our brains into thinking we’re meeting those needs with these little dopamine hits that we get. We scroll Instagram, we scroll Pinterest, we watch other people achieve goals, we watch television shows, we watch people’s real lives and we watch people’s made-up stories, we read books. There’s so much that we can consume. We go to movies. I love all of these things, but they trick my brain into thinking that I’m being creative or I’m connecting or I’m contributing in the world when I am not if I’m just sitting back consuming. Okay?

So this is something that will keep you from succeeding. It will prevent your success. It will slow down your growth by distracting you and it will even again, satisfy that itch temporarily that says, I want to see what’s possible for me. So this is dangerous, okay? I used to work for a university where I helped students decide if they were going to go back to school and get into their degree programs and enroll in school. Okay? And these were students who were often times nervous about going back to school. They were adults, they had busy lives, so they were worried it wouldn’t fit in their schedule. Or maybe they’d dropped out of school before because it was too hard. So they were afraid of going back and not succeeding. They had all kinds of reasons why they were afraid of it, right? And I would talk to them over and over again about going back to school, about their dreams, about their goals, about the support that we could help them get so that they could be successful and build them up and give them momentum. And some of them would talk to me over and over and over again, month after month after month, and not be stepping into class.

And sometimes I’d have to say, listen, I got to get real with you for a minute. I know you think you’re working on getting your degree because you talk to me all the time and I’m an admissions counselor. And maybe you even go to family gatherings or parties and you tell people, yeah, I’ve been working on getting my degree. I’m talking to my admissions counselor. But guess what? Until you step foot in a classroom and earn some credits, you aren’t any closer to getting your degree. And I’m telling you that because I care about you and I know this matters to you. And I’m speaking to that little part of their brain, right? That is tricked into thinking that by learning about going back to school, they’re working on going back to school. Learning is a necessary first step, but it’s only a tiny step and it’s a passive step.

Are you doing this with your goals? Are you thinking that there’s something more you need to learn, some other credential you need to get, some other expert you need to ask, somebody’s advice you need to get, the perfect plan, the perfect strategy, the perfect credentials or partnership to help you succeed? Guess what? You don’t need any of that. You need to take action. You need to create things. You need to put it out into the world. And your brain will be afraid of this because it will think, what if people don’t like it? What if it’s not good? What if it doesn’t create the result I want? And what we’re going to remind it is what we discovered up in number one, right? Which is, well, even if people don’t like it, at least I created something. At least I know now that this didn’t land. And so I’m closer to achieving my goal than if I don’t take this step.

If I go on this particular eating plan and I don’t lose the weight, I’m still better off than if I’d never tried it. Because now I know this doesn’t work for me for whatever reason. It doesn’t work for my body or it doesn’t work for my lifestyle or I can’t stick with it. Okay, that’s good to know. That’s more useful than me never trying. Even if I go on a whole bunch of dates and I don’t meet someone that I want to continue to have a long-term relationship with, I’m still better off than if I sit home not dating, not trying to meet people. I’m still closer to finding a partner or spouse than if I don’t go on dates, right? And I’ve learned something about me and I’ve met some other people and I’ve learned something about what I don’t want or I’ve gotten better at going on dates. For all kinds of reasons, taking action is always ideal and preferable to inaction.

Number three. Most people when they tell me they’re afraid of failing, I ask them why. What would be so terrible about failing? Now, keep in mind, failing, the word ‘failure’ itself is subjective. You can call it a failure or you can call it one iteration amongst many iterations. And sometimes it takes a lot more iterations of trying something than I thought it was going to or that I wanted it to achieve something in my life. I don’t know if you can relate to that, but you can call it an iteration, you can call it a failure, you can call it I had the timeline wrong, I’m going to go again, whatever you want. But I’m just going to call it failure in case your brain is calling it that. And when I ask people, why are we so afraid of failing? What would be so terrible about it if you tried this thing and you didn’t get the result you wanted in the timeline you wanted? And they say this, “I just don’t want to be disappointed. I don’t want to be embarrassed. I would feel stupid. I would feel humiliated. I would feel discouraged.” And how do they know that? Because they’ve felt that way in the past when they haven’t reached goals, right? Maybe it’s even the same goal. And they’re tired of feeling that way.

So here’s what I want to tell you with number three is that disappointment is optional. Embarrassment, humiliation is optional. Did you know this? It’s optional because disappointment isn’t something that happens when you don’t reach a goal. Hear me say this. Disappointment happens when you make it mean something negative about yourself or about your life. Embarrassment isn’t from not reaching your goal and having other people see it. Embarrassment is an emotion or feeling you create with the story in your head. Oh man, I can’t believe these people saw me. I wonder what they’re thinking. They’re probably judging me. I look like such an idiot. I feel so stupid. Those kinds of thoughts make you feel embarrassed or ashamed. Other people’s judgments don’t and you not reaching your goal doesn’t. Okay?

So disappointment is optional, embarrassment is optional because those thoughts are optional. Now, it’s also okay to have those emotions. You can just experience the emotions, process them, allow them, take deep breaths, be with yourself, support yourself, open up to them, experience what it feels like to be a human being in the world feeling disappointment and feeling embarrassment. It’s not that big of a deal when you just do the emotion. When you resist the emotion and you’re afraid of the emotion, then it feels intolerable. But just feeling the emotion, not that big of a deal. Okay?

But if you decide, hey, I’m going to go after this thing, I’m going to go on 100 dates this summer in the hopes that I find a partner, then I want you to tell yourself right now that no matter what, you will not be disappointed in yourself, and you won’t be disappointed in life, and you won’t be disappointed that you tried this thing. Just commit ahead of time when you set the goal. “Hey, future me, I am going to be so proud of you for trying when you do this thing. And maybe it’s going to play out the way we hope and maybe it’s not. But I will not be mad at you either way. I won’t judge you, I won’t tell you you did it wrong, I won’t wish that you hadn’t done it. I won’t get mad at God or start saying there’s no good guys out there or no good girls out there. I will be so proud of you for doing this thing. Let’s go.”

When you start out having your own back, it’s a lot easier to have your own back along the way and you’re actually a lot more likely to create the result, ironically enough, from this peaceful place. Whenever I set goals in my business, I tell myself, “Hey, Jody Moore, let’s go. Let’s do this webinar. Let’s go out there and offer this class. Let’s put up a YouTube channel.” And my brain’s like, but what if it doesn’t work? What if nobody watches it? What if nobody subscribes? What if you’re a failure? What if you never, you never achieve any kind of momentum? What if it doesn’t serve your clients? What if people hate it?

And the answer to that is, then I will be so proud of you for trying anyway. And I will be grateful to you for trying anyway. And good news, we can keep iterating and work on getting better at it. And eventually, we’ll probably figure some things out. We are going to be bad at it in the beginning and eventually we’ll probably get better. But I’m not going to be mad at you for that. I’m going to love you for trying. I’m going to appreciate you for setting a big goal and going after it. That is a choice you can make, my friends. Disappointment is optional, even embarrassment is optional. But sometimes I still feel those emotions, and then I just take a deep breath and allow them. Not that bad.

All right, number four. This one I feel really strongly about. If you have a fear of failure and you ask yourself why, we just talked about in number three, it might be the emotions that you’re worried about. But sometimes we set goals that require we take some risk, right? So again, my entrepreneur clients are often setting goals that are requiring that they invest some time or they invest some money, right? Maybe they’re putting money into the business, maybe they’re investing in a health coach or something else that’s going to support their health, some kind of supplements or things like that. Maybe you’re investing time. Again, you’re creating things and you’re experimenting and you’re trying things out.

So there are resources invested. There’s almost always energy invested, right? If we’re setting a big goal. But when you invest in your goals or your dreams or what you want to accomplish, I recommend that you don’t invest any more than you can afford to “lose”. I say, I put that in air quotes because have you really lost the time? Have you really lost the money? Or did you simply pay money to learn the lesson, to have the experience, to discover a path that you don’t want to go down any longer, or to discover something else that’s actually useful in accomplishing your goal?

But let’s call it loss anyway. Let’s say you’re going to put a bunch of money into Facebook ads to grow your coaching business. This is what coaches tell me. Well, I just am so afraid, what if it doesn’t work? What if I don’t get clients? And what I say to them is, do not put more money into ads than you can afford to lose right now. In other words, if you got zero clients, I don’t want you to end up homeless or unable to feed your family. So you only need to invest, this includes your time, your money, et cetera, what you can afford to put in right now. But what can you afford to put in? Now, I’m not saying you’re not going to see a return on that investment, and I don’t want you not believing in it. You’re allowed to believe in it. But I still never invest more than I can afford to walk away from right now. If I don’t see the return on this timeline that I thought I was going to, I still might see the return later, but if not, it’s not going to keep me up at night.

Now, in the beginning, that meant I had a couple hundred dollars a month to invest. That was all I could afford to put in and not have it negatively impact my lifestyle or my family or something if I didn’t get a client right away. Now I’m investing more than that, but my business grew and I grew with it. Okay? So there are people out there who have the opposite approach of this. They will tell you to burn the boats, right? You’ve heard the story about burning the boats. If not, you can go google it. I’m not going to tell it right now because I don’t like that story because it’s about war and killing people and burning boats in the either you kill them or we die. And I just don’t find that to be a very fun way to go after my goals. I don’t think we have to burn the boats. I don’t think you have to go after your goals from this intense amount of life-or-death kind of pressure. I find it to be much more useful for me and many of my clients to go after goals from playfulness and lightheartedness and you can absolutely do that. And it will help minimize your fear of failure because every time your brain says, well, what if this doesn’t work? What if we fail? Then I say, no harm done. Then we just go again and we take the learnings and we try something different. And I won’t be mad at you. Try it out, my friends. Don’t risk more than you can afford to lose.

All right. Number five. Give yourself as long of a runway to succeed as possible. Now I’m not talking about making your goals softer or weaker. I’m just talking about giving yourself a long runway. Here’s what I mean by that. If I say I really need to lose 10 pounds in the next two months, okay? That’s totally doable. You could lose 10 pounds in two months in a very healthy, sustainable way, but if you’re anything like me, that would require me getting really focused, really dialed in to lose that kind of weight in that timeline. Some of you could do that easily. For me personally, it would require a lot. So rather than I’m going to lose 10 pounds in the next two months, I might give myself a longer runway like, let’s over the course of the next year, lose 20 pounds and learn to keep it off sustainably and somewhat easily. Let’s make it a habit to live in a way that sustains my 20-pound weight loss over the course of the next year.

Notice that, yes, I stretched it out to a year and I did increase the goal. But instead of going 20 pounds in four months, I said 20 pounds in a year. That gives me lots of time to iterate and have some trial and error. And I included again, the sustainability of the weight loss. So I upped the goal, but I have a longer runway now by which to have some trial and error and some iteration. I much prefer a bigger, longer goal like that allows me lots of room to come and go and try things.

Now, as I go after that bigger goal, I’m going to have little probably objectives and things I’m trying to achieve. So there might be some little mini failures in there, but a bigger, longer goal gives me a lot more room to play, a lot more room to experiment. So every time my brain says, well, that didn’t work, you failed at that, I’m like, well, maybe we lost that battle, but we haven’t lost the war. Again, I hate that analogy. It’s super violent, but you get what I’m saying, right? I have to think bigger picture about things that scare me, things that feel really hard for me, things that feel really challenging, and give myself time to become the person who can achieve the goal. Because if I was her already, I would be achieving the goal. I’m not her and becoming someone different takes some time.

Okay, final thing I want you to think about if you have this fear of failure that so many have. I want you to picture your tombstone, okay? And every time your brain tries to give you an excuse for not trying, for not showing up and working on the thing, for not putting yourself out there, for not doing it, right? I want you to imagine that excuse written on your tombstone and ask yourself if you’re satisfied with that. So I work with a lot of moms building businesses, right? And they’ll say things like, every time it’s time to work on my business, I just seem to find something else that really needs to get done, like the dishes need to be done, or the kids really need me and they’re being really whiny right now. Something like this, right? These are things that we want to have done. They’re not bad things to be doing. Most of these women don’t tell me they’re sitting around watching Netflix. They’re just like, I just get distracted with the laundry and the dishes and stuff.

So then I tell this woman, okay, let’s imagine your tombstone, the end of your life, and it’s going to read, “At least the dishes and laundry were always done.” What? No. That is not what we want on our tombstone, right? At least she never made the kids have to sacrifice or wait around. No. Some of you have things like, well, what will people think? What if somebody judges me? What if that was going to be on your tombstone? “At least no one had a reason to judge her.” No, we don’t want that, right? So instead, what do you want your tombstone to read? You want it to read, “She left a legacy behind her. She achieved big things. She went all in.”

Now, these don’t even have to mean that you achieved goals, right? But if your tombstone read, “She went in with her whole heart, she gave it her all,” I would be delighted with that being on my tombstone. It doesn’t need to say that I achieved everything I set out to do. I’m not going to achieve everything I set out to do. But I want to live a life where I give it my all, where I give myself a fair shot. Every time your brain says what if you fail? Remember, that would be okay. What if I don’t even try? That would be tragic.

Oh wow, look at that. You made it to the end. Your time and attention is valuable, and I don’t take it lightly that you made it this far. In fact, it tells me you might be like me; insatiably curious about people and life and potential and connection. Maybe you have big dreams but a small budget and no time. You’re tired, but bored. You’re content, but dissatisfied. Sound familiar? Come to a free coaching call and see for yourself what’s possible: JodyMoore.com/freecoaching to register. That’s JodyMoore.com/freecoaching.