Are You Afraid To Fail?

Have you ever wondered what you would do if you weren’t afraid to fail? Have you ever wondered what you would do if you had permission to fail? Have you wondered what you would achieve if there was no social stigma attached to failure?

In modern society, we enjoy freedom in various forms. Freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of expression and even freedom to choose our gender. But what still holds stigma in society is freedom of failure. Failure is often seen as a dead end, the end result or a point of no way forward.

Erich Fromm, a Frankfurt-based psychoanalyst and an accomplished author says “There can be no real freedom unless there is freedom to fail”. He elaborates further to say, if humanity cannot live with the dangers and responsibilities inherent in freedom, it will probably turn to authoritarianism. Drawing on this, the lack of freedom to fail only causes inaction, procrastination and kills innovation. It only limits people’s choices and takes away options to be unique, do things differently and innovate.

Imagine if people like Thomas Edison, The Wright Brothers or even Bill Gates or Mark Zuckerberg were afraid to fail and experiment. Where would the world be scientifically, technologically or even socially? We would all be living in the Dark ages. Are we all so naïve to think that they found success at their very first attempt at what they excelled at? I think not! What they found was a way to embrace their fears, see failure as a feedback to move forward and try the same thing in different ways until they found success.

Once fear of failure is out of the way, it frees the mind to take action and gain momentum in anything you want to achieve.

What if we flipped failure on its head and saw it as ‘just the beginning’? What if we said failure gives us an opportunity to rectify glitches in execution and try alternate ways to achieve the result, and remove the pressure of getting it right every single time.

Think of a baby, we never expect a baby to walk the very first time. We allow the baby to explore, try several ways, fall and stumble many times before learning to walk properly. What if we gave failure the same perspective and call it falls and stumbling blocks before we get to the destination. How would this change your life?

Freedom to Failure Tip: When you stumble and fall on your way to accomplish something, congratulate yourself because you are one step closer to your future success. The road to success is paved with failure. And you are discovering a pathway Live life on Your Terms, Unleash Your Potential and Live Your Dream.