How to Overcome a Fear of Failure

This type of fear - the fear of failure - is normally a product of your type of thinking. A correlation can be drawn between a fear of failure, thoughts of not being good enough and the poor-me, narcissist impulse associated with the ego.

This type of thinking is often underpinned by a sense of limitation (I'm not worthy, can't you see how hard I'm trying...) or even some form of righteous indignation (what I call being stuck inside the victim mindset).

So how do you dissolve this limitation so you can overcome a fear of failure or a fear of not being good enough? Here are some pointers.

1. Become intricately familiar with your motive for participation. Notice what's driving your behavior. Is your participation reluctant or is it whole-hearted? If you notice yourself having thoughts that regenerate the idea that I'm not good enough, inquire if this type of thinking serves you or not. If not, make the choice to replace such limiting thoughts with new, empowering and self-fulfilling ones.
2. Skillful means. Another reason you may be stuck with a fear of failure or a fear of not being good enough is due to a lack of skills to handle complex challenges. In order not to feel overwhelmed by challenges and stay in flow, our skills-set must match the complexity of the challenge. And the only way to get better at a skill is through hours of practice. Think of Tiger Woods and the hours and hours he spends on the driving range hitting golf balls - literally millions of golf balls! It was Bruce Lee who said that he fears more the guy whose practiced one kick a thousand times than the guy whose practiced a variety of kicks a thousand times. Get in flow and stay in flow through endless hours of mastering your craft.
3. Use your breath to connect with the present moment. When we feel fearful, our breath tends to become shallow and top-heavy. Relax any tension in your body by first bringing your awareness to it and then breathe into that space. Take deep belly breaths. The Taoists believe that the more fearful one becomes, the greater the distance of their breath from the seat of death - the area of the naval, the pit of the stomach just above the seat of life, the reproductive organs. So next time you have a fear of failure, bring your awareness to your breath and very consciously notice how it affects your state of consciousness (are you relaxed or tense)?
4. Heal pathology. Finally, your fear of failure or your fear of not being good enough could stem from some past failure which you've subsequently integrated into your belief system. Normally when we become our past failures, this influences our behavior moving forward. What's required in this instance is to heal any past pain so it no longer affects you in the present moment. Ken Wilber has a useful technique called the 3-2-1 of Shadow work for this particular need. The 3 steps involve firstly facing your pain head-on, secondly talking to your pain body, and thirdly integrating your pain body so it's no longer your separate self-sense.Once you've integrated your trauma, you can transcend it. 

Overall though, I would say failure is a part of life. Our failures serve as sign posts for further learning, growth and development until we are either ready to get it right or to realign onto a path more suited to our nature. Ask yourself what's the worst that can happen; you're not going to die facing your fear of failure or your fear of not being good enough. At worst, you'll learn something new about yourself.

So use these tools and techniques to help you take responsibility for your feelings, overcome whatever fear you're faced with and to live more authentically and abundantly in the present.