Winning Beats Losing III

When talking about winning or success, the assumption can be that it means that everything will always go right and mistakes cannot or will not be made. We think that those who succeed always got it right. This is a big misconception.

Failure must be embraced as part of the process of winning if we are to succeed at anything. As Captain Haddock says in the Tintin movie, “Don’t let your failures defeat you.” Unfortunately, fear of failure is one of the greatest obstacles to success. I know this is a fear I continue to struggle with.

I have always been competitive. As a kid, I had a friend who did much better in school than I did. (We are still good friends.) After every test and report card we would compare grades. He would always come out ahead. After a while I expected to lose to him and decided not to study as much as he did. In my mind, I thought, “I could get grades like Bres if I wanted to but I just choose to not study as much as he does.” The reality was I feared that even if I studied all out, I still wouldn’t do as well as Bres (short for Breslin – everybody was called by their last name. I was Corc.) In reality, Bres just had a better work ethic and I let the fear of failure defeat me.

Recently, I began writing a letter to myself at the instruction of my leadership coach. The letter was to list what I will achieve this year. The idea of the letter is that I could read it a year from now and celebrate the victories. Instead of writing assertively, I couched my words carefully to cushion myself for failure. I said things like, “I hope you will be at your ideal weight.” And “You should have spent time with your kids.” I did this instead of being assertive and saying, “You will have lost weight.” My letter reflected my fear of failure.

Seth Godin says, “If failure is not an option than neither is success.” If we are too afraid to positively assert our goals and try bold things that might not work, we will never be successful, we will not win. Winning by its nature means we have to risk losing. In sports, two teams or individuals compete knowing there is a possibility they may lose. It is that tension which brings a dynamism and drama to sporting events. The team that never steps on the field will never win a game or experience the thrill of winning.

If we are not risking failure, we aren’t trying. And to risk failure means we will fail at times. If we wish to win, we must embrace failure as part of the process of winning and success.

As a person who fears failure I return to Teddy Roosevelt to inspire me to get over fear. He said, “It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or how the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.” – Citizenship in a Republic

How do you overcome a fear of failure?