I'm Val! Coach for creatives
like you who are ready to be healthier, happier and more empowered women who love the business you run, the people you serve and the life you live!
How Your Fear of Failure is Killing Your Business
You should consider failing more often.
Probably not what you were expecting me to say, huh? 😉 You really wouldn’t expect anyone to give you that advice, much less a business coach. Success is the goal, right?! Even though failure seems like the worst possible outcome, it may actually be more helpful than you think.
As creatives and as entrepreneurs, we’re trying to make something out of very little. We’ve got a ton of ideas and a lot of passion, but it’s still going to take a lot of work to turn those ideas into realities.
I seriously LOVE hearing all the ideas that our creative community thinks up. Any time I hear a new idea, my wheels instantly start turning with all the possible strategies that could make it work! If it weren’t for creatives, pioneers and innovators like you, we would just stick with the boring status quo. We would have been content with home phones connected to the wall with a curly cord. But someone like you had a better idea and eventually we got the iPhone. People like you made that happen! And that’s pretty cool!
But there is something that will kill all of your ideas before they ever see the light of day.
Fear.
Specifically fear of failure. Wanna know why?
Fear of failure keeps you stuck in what is normal and accepted. Fear of failure doesn’t let you push the envelope. It says, let’s not get too many crazy ideas. It says that people probably won’t accept your new and strange ideas, so don’t waste your time. It says to just do what everyone else is doing.
My husband, Mark, is kind of weird with music. He’ll get attached to a song and listen to it on repeat for hours! It’s so weird, guys. The type of music he loves is more electronic pop. He’s always liked it, but for most of his childhood, that sound was pretty sparse and hard to find. Then some creative musicians started “experimenting” with different electronic sounds. I’d be willing to bet they were afraid at times that no one would like their music. And actually, there were probably some producers who didn’t like it. But they didn’t let the fear of failure stop them. They moved forward and now that electronic pop sound is all over the place, making Mark very happy and me somewhat annoyed 😉 😉
Fear of failure wants to stifle your creativity, but going against the grain and outside the norm is what creates some of the best ideas that serve your people best!
Like in High School Musical, the fear of failure doesn’t want you to mess with the status quo. 😂 It says that everyone is just fine with the way things are. You’re foolish to try to change things or add something new to the market. It kills your innovative ideas by telling you they probably won’t work.
Remember when Apple released their first iPhone? I thought it was the dumbest idea I had ever heard! “Why would you need to mix your phone with your iPod? Nobody needs that! I doubt that thing survives.” Those were my real thoughts, y’all. 🤦🏼♀️ Oh my youthful naivete! Clearly I was completely wrong – I can’t imagine life now without my iPhone! Like, what is MapQuest anyway? 😂
Fear of failure wants to kill innovation, but sometimes you just have to try something new and see what happens. It might be wildly successful and it might not. But you know the saying…you never know until you try!
Maybe you have that creative itch, an idea, a passion, and you really believe in it. You want to move forward, but you just can’t. Fear of failure can be so strong that it paralyzes us from ever trying. You don’t know what will happen if you try, and the fear of something bad happening stops you completely.
Let’s talk about a few ways to shift your mindset about failure and how to overcome it.
Failure is actually not that big of a deal.
We tend to make a bigger deal out of failure than we need. The reality is, if you fail, you have to choose to move forward. People most likely won’t remember that failure, and even if they do, most people won’t define you by that, unless you do.
We are highly influenced by the way people present themselves and if you come out of a failure optimistically, it’s likely that failure will only be a distant memory in no time. And, of course, it’s important to remember that there will always be haters. Haters gonna hate and you can’t do much about that, so you may as well shake it off and keep moving forward. (Hey Tswift!)
Failure will most likely not kill your business, but the fear of failure can keep your business dying a slow death because you never changed, improved or innovated.
When you try something new, you may fail. But that’s actually a good thing! What you learn from a failure (like figuring out what went wrong) is priceless data. Did your Instagram campaign not go well? Instead of deleting the app in despair, ask yourself why it didn’t work, try something different and see the how the results change. Keep learning and changing to find the right formula for success. And then keep learning and changing as your business and the industry grows, because it’s not a stagnant, one-size-fits-all space.
It’s important to remember that things. take. time. If you try a new marketing method, you can’t write it off after one day of no growth. We need to be patient and give new methods a chance!
Maybe you have a good idea that fails miserably. Yes, it stings, and appropriately so, but you may find an unintended outcome…a silver lining. Take enough time to look at your failures and see if you can see an even better idea that can come from that failure. Did you know, the man who helped give us Post-it Notes was trying to create a super strong adhesive but failed and made a super weak adhesive? That failure sparked an idea that become a huge success. The kind that sits on millions of desks today. How’s that for a silver lining!
No one wants to fail. That’s just human. But you really should consider failing more often. Because if you’re never failing, you miiiiight not be reaching your full potential. You have some great ideas, some high hopes and dreams, but a few of those might just have to fail so you can either improve on it or find an even better option.
So friend, it’s time to let go of our fear of failure. Be creative. Try new things. Innovate. Take a risk. Challenge the status quo. Just TRY it.
I'm Val! Coach for creatives
like you who are ready to be healthier, happier and more empowered women who love the business you run, the people you serve and the life you live!
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Love this message! We need to remember it’s okay to fail – we end up learning & growing from it.