How to Overcome Fear of Failure

Fear as the Ultimate Decision Maker

It’s my belief that the most common decision maker in the lives of too many people is fear. I have made a concerted effort to make sure that fear never stops me from experiencing the best in life. I practice this everyday, and soon, you will too. This is how to overcome the fear of failure.

I talked to a 50-year-old bartender the other night who is supporting two other humans by working multiple bartending jobs. She was telling me about this man she’s dating who is at the tail end of a divorce. She said that she’s very much in love with him but that she’s afraid that he would break her heart. The divorce, his work travel schedule, and her work schedule were all interfering factors for her.

I asked her this question: “Which is more powerful for you, the love or the fear?”

Real love––that feeling when you can’t do without someone––that’s rare and amazing. The more you get to feel that, the better your life will be. If it ends, that’s a known risk. It will hurt, you won’t like it, but you know you’ll survive.

Later, I’ll tell you about Cassie. I got to feel that falling-in-love feeling with her, and I got to sleep next to her maybe a half-dozen times. I’d wake up in the night, realize where I was, then fall back to sleep in bliss. Love is the ultimate goal for anyone, or at least it should be. I had feeling that it was going to end in a train wreck with Cassie, but the risk of heartbreak was worth it to me.

I shared that story with the bartender. She said that she had never looked at her situation that way. She had this amazing love right in front of her, and she was letting fear obscure her ability to enjoy it.

To lose a chance for something amazing just because you’re afraid is absolutely unconscionable.

When I was a kid, I was afraid a lot––elementary school bullies, neighborhood kids, getting a shot at the doctor’s office, you name it. How to overcome the fear of failure was not a top priority on my list. I think a lot of parents are afraid for their youngsters, and that instills a kind of hypervigilance in the kids. It’s good for the most part. Look both ways before you cross the street, don’t get in the car with a stranger, don’t touch the hot wire fence. You’re learning to navigate a pretty scary place. For a little kid, the world has its sharp edges––that’s for sure.

In middle school, I was always super tense. I remember coming home from a dance once, and my back hurt so bad that I had to go to bed. It was the tension of teenage angst sinking its teeth into my body. I’d stand there along the wall of the gym, looking out at all those girls, afraid as hell. The scenario in my head was detailed and egregious. I’d ask a girl to dance, and she’d turn to her friends and yell, “Travis Neville thinks he can dance with me!” They’d all start laughing hysterically, the music would stop, a spotlight would beam down on me, and the DJ would start taking shots. “Everybody look at Travis Neville! He thinks a girl would want to dance with him!” In the midst of all the laughter, I’d shit my pants.

Fear Creates Delusion

Cameras would pop out, and the moment would be immortalized forever. I’d go home, and my parents would tell me, “No, we can’t move to another town.” I’d have to deal with the fear all night, all the next morning, and walking the halls that next day would include photos of my shit pants on every locker. Even my favorite teachers would be wearing tee-shirts featuring various airbrushed and screen-printed versions of the incident. I’d be on the announcements that morning, when the principal would say, “It doesn’t matter what else is going on in the world, Travis Neville tried to ask a girl to dance last night, and then he soiled his slacks. He’s in room 126 right now, and you’re all free to leave your classes to go stare at him.” There would be a plaque in my honor built into the floor of the gym on the exact spot where it all happened. That would allow future generations to share in my shame.

I can go on and on about where my unfortunately creative imagination takes it from there. I realize now that this makes me no different than most kids. Being embarrassed in front of your peers is the ultimate disgrace. An adolescent mind cannot usually overcome such fears. As I grew, thankfully, I learned to turn that fear into something useful.

Fear Has Many Disguises

In high school, I participated in sports. I can remember that a wave of anxiety would flood over me when I was standing near my blocks, and I heard, “Runners to your marks.” This physical feeling of dread, the heightened awareness, and the jumpiness was adrenaline! I learned to harness that fear and even welcome it. It made me faster, stronger, and better at what I was doing. I was right. My senior year of athletics, I put up far and away the best performances I’d ever recorded for myself.

Bigger than the adrenaline thing, though, was the anger thing. Even as a little kid, there was always a voice inside of me that was angry about the fear. I was disappointed in myself for being such a damn pussy. Maybe it was my dad’s voice coming through in my mind or maybe it was my own, but that’s what was happening. I was mad at myself for being afraid. There was a grown man inside me who refused to allow this type of behavior to flourish. I would never feel right about the world until I could not just control but kick the shit out of my fears.

As I became an adult, I realized a few things about the world.

Fear has no practical purpose anymore.

We live in such a soft, over-civilized society that there are hardly any real dangers remaining. You have to seek out danger if you want that adrenaline. Fear is almost always irrational. My sister taught me this simple tool that helps when I face fear. Use your mind to extrapolate the worst-case scenario in a given situation you’re worried or afraid about. How will you deal with that worst-case scenario? What will be your move? Once you have a plan for that, it’s now less stressful. Naturally, the worst case doesn’t happen very often, anyway, but if it does, at least you have a plan.

What eventually won out and became much more important than that is this: Fuck fear. Fuck it right in it’s angry asshole. When I find myself afraid of something, I will do the thing just out of spite. If I don’t want to answer a phone call, because I’m afraid of what the caller is going to say to me, I answer the damn thing and deal with it. If I’m afraid to ask a woman out because she’s too confident, too hot, or she’s with all of her friends, I march the fuck over there and do it. I’ve realized that the only thing worse than pictures of your shitty pants all over the school is wondering what might have happened if she had said yes. That wonder, that not knowing…it’s a thing that I don’t want to live with. As a more confident (and realistic) man, I know that the DJ probably didn’t even have a spotlight. And if he did, well then, fuck him. Any time I face a fear in life, regardless of the outcome, that’s a win.

Excerpt from The Jossman Method by Travis Neville.

The Jossman Method: Conquering Life’s Transitions provides real, actionable steps to help you become the man you were meant to be.

Get your copy on Amazon.