Life creates a lot of paradox in our way of living.
You want to do certain things but you don’t venture out because you are afraid of failure.
You regret not having done many things because you were too scared to try.
A child gets onto a bicycle for the first time and falls.
The tears flow as the pain runs through their body. But now the decision.
Should I climb back on and try again?
Should I risk falling and hurting myself again?
The motivation to trying again can come from inside, with a strong desire to ride around with my friends or from outside through encouragement from my peers or parents.
On the other hand the fear of falling again could be so great that they never learn to ride a bicycle.
I believe that as a child, you have a strong desire to learn and enjoy all that life has to offer. Pain wears off and balanced against the sense of achievement of learning something new, failure pales into insignificance.
However, when you grow up, you associate failure with pain, rejection and emotional trauma. Physical pain is something that can be controlled by an external force like pain killers but emotional pain is an internal thing that you alone control. Time is the alleged healer but we all know different.
Another type of failure affects your self-image.
What will people think of me if I attempt this and fail?
This is especially bad when you have a poor self-image and expect to fail. You really want to be different and accepted but the fear of failing again opens the doors to excuses.
The question is whether you allow the fear of failure to override your desire to try something new.
I think many have fallen into the trap of living the same way every day.
The Comfort Zone?
Doing the same things you did yesterday, speaking to the same people and working at the same job.
No need to stretch or test your failure fears as you’ve already past that test.
You live a routine life and might even be labelled as boring because of your choices.
There are some areas in life that really hurt deeply if you have failed in areas like:
- Relationships
- Divorce
- Retrenchments
- Disabilities from bad decisions
- Illegal activities
I’m sure you can add many more items to this list but the question remains;
Are you never going to try again because you failed more than once?
If you continue to fail because you’re doing something wrong then you need to change your approach. There is so much information available about everything you need to know on the net. Forums, chat rooms, websites and blogs cover almost every angle of the human experience. Many of the authors would be more than willing to share how they succeeded in overcoming their problem.
The decision is yours but only after you decide which is worse – failing or never trying?
The men who try to do something and fail are infinitely better than those who try to do nothing and succeed.Â
Lloyd Jones