The Advantage of Atychiphobia – the Fear of Failure
The fear of failure is called Atychiphobia by people who use big words to impress average people. But anxiety isn’t always bad. The same people who made up atychiphobia made up eustress to describe good stress.
Good stress precedes growth, challenge, and new situations. What could be good about fear of failure?
10 symptoms of fear of failure:
- You worry about what people think of you.
- You worry about your ability to pursue the future you desire.
- You worry that people will lose interest in you.
- You worry about your abilities and intelligence.
- You worry about disappointing people you respect.
- You explain why you won’t do well to lower expectations.
- You struggle to imagine what you could have done differently.
- You find excuses to not prepare.
- You follow distractions that prevent you from completing preparations.
- You procrastinate and end up not preparing adequately.
I have most of the symptoms of fear of failure. As the years pass, I feel it less, but I still worry about disappointing leaders who trust me to speak to their organizations, for example. And that’s just a beginning!
Fear of failure is harmful when it’s an excuse for poor performance.
Advantage:
People who don’t care if they disappoint people are geniuses or idiots. A little fear of failure is good for average folk.
The fear of failure makes you small when reaching low is the best you can do.
Anxiety that motivates preparation is healthy, but surprisingly, habitual lack of preparation reflects fear of failure.
Excitement:
I asked our 9-year-old granddaughter if she was nervous about her Spring concert. She plays the flute. She said, “Not really. I’m excited.”
Research suggests that trying to calm fear increases anxiety but renaming it may help. You aren’t anxious, you’re excited.
Redefine anxiety as excitement.
How does fear of failure show up in your experience?
How might leaders respond to fear of failure in themselves? In others?
So it turns out I’m just excited 🙂 Once again Leadershihp Freak has nailed it. I experience all 10 quite frequently (especially 8-10). I am going to try and reframe my feelings as excitement and see what if I can break the cycle! Anyone else going to join me?
Yes! Having also been so plagued, after many years I discovered it helps to flip my focus from fear of failure to the opportunity to succeed and to envision the favorable consequences of doing so.
Thanks for your personal experience. It seems that the way we think about something matters.
thanks Susan. I wish you well. I feel like navigating the tension between healthy anxiety and unhealthy fear is a challenge.
Dan, Is it really fear of failure or is it the fear of the unknown? The sense we are treading on something new as compared to something we have done and judged poorly for. I agree as we get mature we tend to worry less because we have gotten our feet wet so to speak. I have time to dwell less on what others think and concentrate on more of what we can do. We are not here to judge or we would all be in the Supreme court. LOL…..
I like the viewpoint as Susan mentions, “reframe my feelings as excitement”, seems a much gander way to approach the fear of failure.
Thanks Tim. Yes… spend more time focusing on what we can do. Focus matters.
Hi, My name is Scott Shaffer and I struggle with the fear of failure.
Thank you for sharing, Dan.
Hello my friend. I’m delighted to be in your company.
I asked our 9-year-old granddaughter if she was nervous about her Spring concert. She plays the flute. She said, “Not really. I’m excited.” Redefine anxiety as excitement. I do like that. I am generally excited (jazzed sometimes) about what I do. I do tend to get run down and disappointed by others more now. I’m not sure if it’s the last 1.5 years or just a general sense that others do not have 1) the attitude that I do, 2) the desire nor the aptitude that I do, 3) the passion I do, 4) the focus I do, 5) the discipline I do and 6) the organizational skills I do have. It could be because I’m a grizzled seasoned guy with over 40 years on the books and I’m just too impatient with the “young-ins”. I find if I set my expectations on others in the negative territory then anything I get moves it generally positive. It’s sad that I have to do it this way.
Thanks Roger. One of the hardest things to do is focus on things that I CAN DO compared to things I expect from others. It’s true, leaders expect things from others. But keeping our focus on ourselves first is easy to forget.
Expect a lot from others. Expect more from myself.
The difference between excitement and anxiety is whether the fear of failure paralyzes you, preventing you from moving forward. If you use that fear to gain understanding about the pitfalls, develop a realistic plan for moving, and take energy from it, it is excitement. Otherwise, it is anxiety.
Thanks Jennifer. Yes, anticipating problems and preparing for them is healthy and useful. I know some wonderful DOERS who know how to anticipate AND move forward.
It’s less the fear of failure, more a well placed anxiety about the consequences of failure – like the chemical I’m testing killing me…
Thanks Mitch. It feels like there’s an important difference between physical danger and the stuff that bumps around in our head. Having said that, in the case of chemicals that can kill you, fear seems pretty healthy.
Reminds me of the “I Love Lucy” episode when Lil Ricky does his first drum performance and everyone is trying hard to not make his nervous or use that word. Lil Ricky eventually does admit he nervous, but in the end, he puts on a great performance.
Thanks TeeJay… now that’s an oldie. I wish I could remember seeing that espisode.
If you struggle with this (like I do) try consistently working out in the morning or just before the task. It really helps with anxiety and gives you a boost in confidence to get you over the hump!
Thanks Chris. It’s great to read your practical suggestion. For some reason it reminds me of taking a power pose to increase confidence.
It’s pretty eye opening for me to see that I have 8 out of 10 of these symptoms. Yikes!
Thanks Jess. Yikes!! 🙂 they say that owning it is the beginning of moving through it.
Thank you, Dan, for those two great words, atychiphobia and eustress, their meanings, and how they relate and are relevant to our personal and profession life, living, being and doing. I think we all are to some extent atychiphobics in that we fear failing, along with being judged, disbelieved and blamed. Rather than fearing failure or worrying or being anxious about it, successful persons seem to make the most of every loss or failure–and “fall forward.”
I particularly enjoyed that you included the word “eustress,” and described it simply as “good stress.” Yet, eustress is powerful and is a positive, optimistic feeling–an energy, momentum and power that, like you say, precedes growth, challenge, new situations and opportunities for accomplishment and success. Again, my appreciation to you for an excellent post.
Thanks Rick. I appreciate that you expand on eustress. It’s an important idea when we often thing all stress is bad. “Failing Forward” is a great expression for this post. Make the most of failure. That doesn’t mean that failure doesn’t matter. Sometimes it matters a lot. But it’s doubly painful to fail and NOT learn from it.
This is another good one Dan! It reminds me of my favorite line in the book Who Moved My Cheese. The line goes something like: What would I do if I was not afraid? I ask myself this question whenever I have a fear of failure and I let the answer guide me.
Thanks Paul. That question, and others like it, can be transformative for people. I often use, “What’s the bravest thing you can do?”
“The bravest thing *I* can do.” I’m using that! It keeps it real while encouraging leaning into it.
Fantastic!
Very timely – the Fear of Failure is an absolute barrier to success. So is the fear of Success. They are closely related. Think of these fears as giving you the edge. We start in our comfort zone, not wanting to go into the fear zone yet this is where we get our breakthroughs. When you leap over the fear zone you enter the learning zone which is where you see growth. Thanks for the reminder Dan to do something you fear every week which ultimately builds resilience.
Thanks arosyn… Love your use of “zone.”
Comfort zone.
Fear zone.
Learning zone.
So much of success is about the way we see things.
Channeling Brené Brown here. How about the difference between the fear of Failure and the fear of Being a Failure (shame)?
Wow! That’s a whole new level on introspection. Thanks Robert
Do you know what Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia is the fear of? It is the fear of long words. I have always found it to be very interesting that the fear of long words is an insanely long word. You listed out 10 symptoms of fear of failure. One symptom that I did not see and would like to discuss is the worry of appearing weak when failing. I found symptom 4: “You worry about your abilities and intelligence” is very similar to the worry of appearing weak. Leaders do not want to appear to be weak and failing can be perceived as being weak. We all fail and we are going to make mistakes. It depends on how we respond to those failures and mistakes which will show who we truly are. We can learn from our failures and mold us into better leaders. Some of the best life lessons come from personal failures.
Thanks David. I had to look up your word for long words. That’s hilarious.
Your suggestion on the worry of looking weak is so important. And I think you nailed the healthy response to weakness/failure. We’re learning, growing, doing it right next time. The kind of weakness that I find offensive is, “woe is me. I’m a loser.” But when leaders bear their throat by revealing a weakness – as long as they are learning/growing – people tend to respect them.
Of course there are some unethical people who will try to use healthy transparency against us. But, I don’t think that’s a reason to become a faker.