Discover how you can conquer your fear of failure

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Therapy for fear of failure

What is fear of failure?

Becoming aware of and understanding fear of failure is the first step towards successful treatment. As the name implies, fear of failure is the fear to fail. It only manifests when you have a certain task ahead, which will be judged. The judgment may be made by others, but sometimes also just by yourself. A small amount of fear of failure may not be a problem, it can even help to motivate and increase performance. 

However, when this fear grows too big, it is no longer helpful and causes you to suffer. Typical characteristics of fear of failure are sweating, heart palpitations, procrastination, irrational thoughts, physical blocks, blackouts, etc. This is directly related to your expectation; because you expect something to fail, it often will. Often the fear already manifests a long time, hours or even days, before the actual event.

Discover how you can conquer your fear of failure

Fear of failure can apply to physical performance such as sports or physical work, or to mental tasks such as an exam, job interview or project at work. Fear of failure is closely associated with perfectionism; only the best result will be good enough, otherwise you’ll feel like you’ve failed. People who suffer from fear of failure often associate their identity with their performance. They may think, for example: ʺIf I fail, I am a failureʺ. A treatment for fear of failure can help you to better understand and overcome your fear of failure.

The origin of fear of failure

Generally fear of failure originates from negative experiences during your childhood. Children who are raised in a performance-oriented fashion or who receive a lot of negative feedback (where they’ll hear what they did wrong rather than what they did right), often develop fear of failure. Sometimes the fear of failure actually develops because you were always successful and have not learned how to deal with adversarial events.

Therapy for fear of failure

For many people, getting therapy for fear of failure is the first step towards a new, better future. During the treatment of your fear of failure, you’ll process the negative experiences in your past. As a result, you’ll get better at letting go of negative inferences about yourself and your abilities. You’ll start basing your expectations on your abilities (realism instead of perfectionism). Fear of failure will be replaced by self-confidence and self-esteem.

For the treatment of fear of failure, Mindspring applies modern and effective therapeutical methods such as hypnotherapyEMDR therapy and NLP.