No one doubts that life is full of setbacks and moments of discomfort or pain, but it is also true that much of our ills are manufactured by our own imagination. The fear of failure is a perfect example of this .

The fact is that, although we tend to believe that we are fundamentally rational beings and that we act according to logic when we make transcendental decisions that will affect us greatly, the truth is that this is not the case; the simple fact of thinking a lot about failure can act as a trap that limits our freedom .

Fear of failure as a mind trap

Much of what we do is born out of fear of failure. Acting in a certain way and performing actions in a certain way is not the same as maintaining a proactive attitude; although it may sound strange, there are things we do precisely because they allow us to remain in a passive state, that is, within our comfort zone.

Thus, we will be able to draw up very complicated plans and to make a great effort simply to create a convincing excuse (in front of others) that will allow us not to have to start that project that excites us.

The fear of failure is something that paralyzes us but, at the same time, makes us willing to spend time and effort to stay in our comfort zone and not have to face the risk of failure.

The paralysis of analysis

The funny thing about the fear of failure is that it can be camouflaged in many different ways. For example, it can sometimes take the form of analysis paralysis. This is a concept used to refer to the moments when having one or several decisions makes us go without any of the available options.

Analysis paralysis can be understood as a failure to make rational decisions when none of the options is good enough, but it can also be fear of failure disguised as rationality. Those moments of thought in a loop in which decisions are hardly taken and when they do, they disappear to bring us back to the starting point is one of the most frustrating experiences that exist, but they also have another negative consequence: they keep us in place without being able to move, with all the consequences that this entails.

Fighting the fear of failure

Theoretically, the fear of failure is not bad in itself, because it is simply an unpleasant feeling based on rational ideas: what it would mean to fail in our objectives cannot be as positive as what it would mean to succeed, and if this were the case it would mean that the project or the decision means little to us.

However, in practice, when we stop to think about the fear of failure it is usually because it has become a problem, an obstacle.

And how do we avoid the fear of failure? You can do this by following these guidelines.

1. Write down a decision tree

Write down on a sheet of paper the possibilities that lie before you, with their different ramifications, representing the possible consequences of each. Next to each of the options, write down the probability that you think they will occur, assuming that you have made all the previous decisions leading up to that point. To make this estimate as reasonable as possible, you can ask for a second opinion .

Then, write down next to each possible scenario the degree to which you would like or dislike that option. By combining these two types of information for each of the options, you can make another “decision tree” in which the branches are ordered from left to right according to the possibilities of their occurrence , and you can color each one with a palette of colors ranging from red to green that express the degree to which you would like each thing to happen.

This colorful decision tree can help you a lot when it comes to making rational decisions over the fear of failure.

2. Set short-term goals

Once you are clear about which option is rationally right for you and that anything that sets you apart is simply fear of failure, setting short-term goals is the ideal way to commit to that decision. Furthermore, this will make it more difficult to fall into the “I’ll do it tomorrow”, which can be a form of camouflaged fear of failure .

3. Commit yourself to do it before others

Another way to ensure that your fear of failure does not paralyze you is to commit to doing what you are afraid of in front of others. In this way, you can use the logic of fear of failure against yourself, as you begin to fear the possibility of not keeping your word.

Somehow, to combat this state of psychological paralysis it is good to find ways of forcing oneself to do the right thing , and this option is effective (except in the case of pathological addictions, in which case it is essential to see a specialist).