The thought of failure is worse than the reality

I have a friend who is quite successful. Projects and opportunities and connections and money flow his way freely. 

I’ve known him for a while, and have heard his success stories. I’ve also witnessed some of his failure stories. There have been times when he’s taken massive Ls. What impresses me most is how quickly he forgets about his failures. 

As for myself, I think about my failures a lot. I’m afraid to network with people because I don’t know what to say. I fumble opportunities because I’m afraid what might happen if I fumble them. Recently I realized that my friend isn’t necessarily better at networking or business than I am. He’s just not afraid to fail. And when he does fail, he gets right back up and keeps going. 

The thought of failure is worse than the reality of it. Think of some of your failures in school, or in your first job, or in early relationships. They weren’t fun at the time, but when you look back at them, they’ve become kind of funny, haven’t they? They don’t weigh so heavily on you. You’ve gotten over them. 

There’s inherent risk in trying anything new. There’s risk in doing anything at all. But we must not allow the fear of failure to keep us from trying. Because if we get over the fear, then we’ve gotten over the worst part.