The fear of failure

When living in a society built on comparison, it is difficult to escape an overbearing feeling of inadequacy. Achieving at a lesser rate forces us to believe that we are somehow inferior to others, and unable to reach similar heights. Whether it’s through a lack of ‘essential’ commodities or god-given talent, consistency in the face of your apparent deficiencies feels inconceivable. However, just because these deficiencies exist, does not mean they are an impenetrable blockade.

In her book ‘Mindset’, Professor of Psychology Carol Dweck discusses two opposing mindsets that dominate the human race - Fixed vs Growth. 

A fixed mindset tends to be employed by individuals who live in the belief, that applying effort to achieve their goals highlights their deficiencies. Meaning their potential achievements are either postponed or abandoned through fear of uncovering that ‘weakness’. 

A growth mindset is often utilised by those who see failure as a means to learn and improve. By treating failure as an inevitability, they lack the preoccupation of weakness and therefore have a much greater potential for success.

The problem is that the anxiety that comes with failure doesn’t descend from self-judgement, but from the judgement of others. If we allow the opinions of others to dictate our actions, we fall into the trap of treating failure as a trait rather than an outcome. Accepting other’s opinions as beliefs rather than realities, decreases the influence they hold over your decisions, and therefore reduces the likelihood of surrendering to the fixed mindset.

In a 1999 New York Times article, Cultural Historian Scott Sandage called attention to the progressive change in our views on failure.

“Failure has been transformed from an action to an identity.”

Sandage’s research shows that the meaning of the word ‘failure’ has gradually mutated from an act into a flaw. The alteration itself has been drawn out over so many years that few had noticed it’s detrimental effects, not only on the amount of people willing to fail, but the amount of people willing to risk.

Lauded visionaries of today are held aloft as shining examples of success, yet there is little mention of the failures they endured to achieve it. Do you think that Apple Inc. was created in 1976 and has been continually successful to this day? How about Microsoft Corporation in 1975? Sony Corporation in 1946?

Various failures in protection of customer data, along with financial debacles such as; Sony’s 9 year stint of Bravia TV seeing losses of £4.6 billion, Microsoft’s $6 billion bath on the purchase of aQuantive in 2007 and Apple Inc’s $450 billion drop in market value in the first quarter of this year, say otherwise.

The average person has none of this on the line. No money. No employees. Their decisions have virtually no impact on the lives of others. Yet that fear is still present. Not only is it still present, but it’s debilitating. 

So, how do we stop this freight train of uncertainty? 

Just because you currently align yourself with the fixed mindset, doesn’t mean that this cannot be consciously altered. In her book, Professor Dweck goes on to discuss the changes people can make to help adjust their mindset.

The studies that Professor Dweck presents, show a remarkable change in the responses of subjects from minor tweaks to their prospective. Opting for more challenging tasks, aiming for improvement rather than achievement and praising effort over talent, all had positive effects on the participant’s ability to accept failure as part of the process. You would be forgiven at this point for thinking that this all sounds a little too easy - where’s the catch?

The catch is that it isn’t easy at all. Forcing your mind to think in a completely different way will not happen overnight. It may take a large amount of time and effort to realign your habitual tendencies with your new ethos. 

However, as long as we battle our natural urge to fallback into our previous disposition, we can begin to change the way we view our short-comings and start to progress instead of capitulate.

I hope after reading this that you have become more aware of how and why we tend to ‘play it safe’ sometimes. At the end of the day fear is completely natural, but we can’t let it dictate our actions and future. The daily battles you have with your conscience don’t stem from a flaw in your character, but a flaw in the thinking of humanity. We are adverse to risk not because we ‘aren’t wired right’, but because of a defective viewpoint in mankind. We don’t fear failure through judgement of ourselves, but through the disparaging eyes of others.

Once you accept these ideas and build a resilience to their effects, you will have a much better opportunity of leading the life you wish to live. After all, the definition of failure isn’t down the opinion of others, it’s down to you. 

Comparison Disease

Jealousy is a touchy subject. Most of us experience it regularly and yet pretend we’re immune to it’s ever-growing hold on the world. The feeling that someone else has more than you, is happier than you or is better than you, dominates the psyche of the anxious. This constant bombardment allows no rest from the negativity that invariably arrives as we are constantly viewing our lives as a state of ‘what ifs’. 

I guarantee that the people you feel belittled by would kill for some of the things you have. Yet, our mind has an intriguing way of focusing on the things we don’t have, rather than the things we do. This is ever present and envelops our mind on a daily basis, but it is especially prevalent during our time spent on social media. 

The internet was invented with the idea of connecting the world in a way that information could be passed and shared freely and quickly, dramatically reducing the social and economic gap that had emerged across the globe. However there were side effects that came along with the instantaneous dispense and consume culture that was cultivated. Over the years, this sharing of information has slowly turned from a creative encyclopaedia of factual intelligence to an incomprehensible dick-swinging contest. 

The internet was supposed to be a place of learning, yet it’s regression has taken the shape of a window into the life you wish you had. I highly doubt the inventors of the internet were sitting their on day dot, hoping that one day Mary from Derby could tell her 296 Facebook friends how many expensive holidays she’d been on this year - but here we are. The most fucked up thing about this whole situation is the consumers can see the chaos unfolding in front of them, but attempt nothing to avoid it. 

How many times whilst scrolling through Instagram have you said/thought something like: “I don’t care what you are eating”. Or how about: “May as well delete Facebook, just a load of people I barely know posting stuff about shite I don’t care about.”

Yet we continue to haemorrhage our time and effort into mulling over the goings on of other people’s lives, most of who we don’t even care about. That’s seriously fucked up.

These problems would be alleviated if our brains processed information based solely on logic and reason. However our mind has an unfortunate habit that it just can’t seem to kick - Comparison.

“Comparison is the thief of joy” - Theodore Roosevelt

In a time were sensitivity runs roughshod and anxiety prevails, comparison is the greatest enemy to one’s happiness. 

Your insatiable hunger for information consumption, coupled with the holy bond between your mind’s worst habits, has resulted in a constant state of comparison. 

“Is my car as nice as his is?"

“I wished I looked like her in that dress.”

“She’s on holiday again? She’s so lucky.”

We realise we’re doing it and we understand that we have to stop, but like an addict hooked on their town’s most stepped on substance, we just can’t seem to put down the pipe. 

We’re consumed with consuming. It’s taken over us like a viral infection takes over it’s host. It’s our default setting, our return to balance, our homeostasis. 

There are huge portions of your life that are not only under appreciated, but completely ignored. Every single relationship you hold dear is one day closer to ending whilst you sit there comparing. Your kids are one day closer to leaving home, your partner is one day closer to giving up hope, and your parents are one day closer to being laid out in a box. All whilst you sit there contemplating what you could have, instead of what you do.

When asked about the subject of jealousy in terms of wanting what somebody else had, Jamie Alderton had this to say:

“If you wouldn’t swap your entire life with someone else’s, then why feel jealous?”

If you wish it were you going on 3 holidays a year instead of Mary, would you be willing to give up your kids to get there?

If you wish you could have as good a relationship as Steve and Jane, would you swap your parents for their’s to achieve that?

If you wish you could look as good in that dress as Sarah does, would you be willing to divorce your husband to get there?

I think not. There’s a good chance that if you sit down to consider what you find important in life, that you already have the majority of those things sitting right in front of you. You’re just that busy comparing the inconsequential details that you can’t see the wood for the trees.

Happiness is wanting what you already have. So put down your fucking phone and appreciate it, because one day it will all be taken away.