Is it Really Fear of Failure?

How many times have you wanted to do something but, inevitably, stopped yourself from doing it? Maybe you wanted to take a class, or travel by yourself. Maybe you wanted to start painting or riding a unicycle. Perhaps you always yearned to work with animals or own a bowling alley, but you stopped yourself from doing any of them.

Or: how many times have you been down a path of doing something you wanted but then stopped -- and then later beat yourself up for stopping? Probably more than a couple. 

Here’s the most obvious example I have in my own life:

I’ve dealt with weight issues my entire life. In my 30s I finally decided I wanted to be fit and feel better about myself physically and emotionally, so I got a personal trainer, started running, and started eating right. And it worked! I dropped a lot of weight, was in the best shape of my life, and ran in races -- even half marathons. The best part was that I kept it up for nearly 5 years. 

But then what happened? I stopped seeing my trainer. I let longer and longer periods go by between workouts. I stopped running for a whole year. I started eating pizza and drinking beer as a regular thing. And, inevitably, I gained back half the weight I’d lost.

I knew this was bad. I knew that this was unraveling years of hard work (not to mention pride in myself). I knew the overweight, out of shape version of me was not the version I wanted to be. But yet I let it slide. I kept going. I got more out of shape. My pants got tighter. My mood was low. My energy sank. I was miserable and so mad at myself. I beat myself up about it, but all that negative self-talk didn’t make me start working out or eating right again.

At the time I had a hundred excuses, most of them based around a really demanding work schedule with a lot of travel: I was too tired from work to go to the gym. I couldn’t join any fitness classes with a regular schedule because my travel schedule was variable. It was too hard to eat healthy while traveling. Etcetera, etcetera.

But as many excuses as I came up with, not a single one actually felt true when I put it under the microscope and checked in with myself. So then I turned to the common wisdom: “A-HA, IT MUST BE FEAR OF FAILURE! Everyone knows that people prevent themselves from succeeding because they’re scared to fail!”

And then I marched around with my chest puffed out, satisfied that I’d landed on the answer/excuse that had to be right because everybody believed it. (Already I should’ve known this was wrong -- anything that’s generally accepted to be  true for “everybody” should be looked at with a side-eye -- but I hadn’t gone through my life coaching journey yet to be at a point where I’d know that “everybody” is full of shit more often than not.) 

But you know what? That didn’t feel true either. It took a lot of introspection to understand that what I had wasn’t a fear of failure, or a fear of the unknown (what does life as a permanently fit person look like?). What I had was a fear of SUCCESS. More specifically, it was fear of succeeding at something that was a big CHANGE. Because I’d dealt with weight issues my whole life, I didn’t know what it was like to live as a fit, healthy person. I didn’t know what it was like to balance fitness and health with a career and relationships. I didn’t know how to envision a life where I prioritized my health over many other things. Even though I’d done it for almost 5 years, there had been 30+ years before that where I had been NOT that person. Healthy me didn’t jibe with the “me” that I’d known my whole life before -- the “me” that I identified with wayyyyy down deep, on a nearly subconscious level.

And it sucked. It sucked to finally realize that I was sabotaging myself because I’d been programmed to believe less positive things about myself. The programming came from others, sure, but I had been living as overweight-me for so long that most of the programming was self-inflicted. And it was when I finally realized that, that I put change into motion. I started working out again (slowly, and with much gasping for air). I started eating right again (hangrily, but with much pride in my good decisions). And I started to focus on aligning my actions with what I really wanted, now, with all this knowledge of myself and how I’d gotten to where I’ve been. And it’s working. I’m not back to where I’d like to be yet, but my mind, spirit and body are aligned. The collective “we” are in agreement than we’re in a good space. We are ready to rock it. We are determined. We no longer fear success, and so we know, finally, that we won’t fail. 

If there’s something you really want, but fear is holding you back, let’s chat. I want to help you feel the freedom that comes from following your truest desires.