This morning I was reading through an article all about fear and how fear effects our body. It was fascinating to learn about all the different processes that take place as the body prepares to handle whatever fear inducer we are facing. I learned all about fight or flight, and the rush of adrenaline you get when you experience the initial fear. Did you know that there are actually 30 different hormones involved in your fear response? It’s how powerful fear is.
As I read this article it got me thinking. I wonder how fear and specifically the fear of failure effect the creative process. I mean lets face it almost all of us at some point or another have experienced the fear of failure. Whether we are working through a presentation and beginning to doubt that what we will produce is valuable, or we are working on a design that just seems to be uninspired, when stressors enter in, fear of failure becomes real. The more I’ve explored and experienced this fear the more I’ve realized it has very real consequences as a creative.
You see the fear of failure also known as atychiphobia can be detrimental to our ability to process and accomplish goals we have set out to do. In fact, according to psychology today “In the short-run, fear of failure influences the types of goals you pursue, the kinds of strategies you use to achieve them, and the level of standards you set as indicators of success. When choosing which goals to pursue, people with a higher dose of fear of failure tend to focus their efforts more on preventing losses than achieving gains.”
Now imagine that mindset as you try to create your next presentation or work on your latest design it could not just delay your project but put a stop to it all together as a way of preventing failure in the first place.
I have seen this play out in my life first hand. I was once asked to present on a topic that I did not feel extremely comfortable presenting on. I felt as if the topic did not apply to me and that I had nothing to add to the conversation. So, I politely declined the invitation, I mean after all there is nothing worse than a presenter who doesn’t know what they are talking about speaking to an audience for an hour. At least that was what I had convinced myself of. Fast forward 2 weeks and regret began to creep in. I started to hear all about the conference and how great it was going to be and really wished I could be part of it. As the regret began to surface what I uncovered was that I hadn’t declined the invitation because I was not equipped, I declined the invitation because I was afraid of the possibility of failing and it had resulted in a missed opportunity.
Here is the truth, look at any great thought leader, inventor, or athlete and you will find someone that has at one point in their life failed. There is a video online that has been recreated over and over again called famous failures, if you are in need of some motivation go and check it out. As you watch this video you will find that people like Michael Jordan, Albert Einstein, and Walt Disney all failed before they succeeded. The difference between them and so many others who are crippled by their fear is that they chose to fail forward. They refused to let their failure end their careers, instead they learned from it and used it as fuel to move forward.
As presenters and designers, I think we suffer from the fear of failure more often than we would like to admit. We are constantly putting our ideas, designs, and stories on display and in our insecure moments it feels more comfortable to retreat then push forward. But the reality is the fear of failure always ends in one result, a missed opportunity. When we choose to sideline ourselves in an attempt to prevent failure we limit our abilities and settle for status quo. Instead we must make a choice to push against the fear. To trust that we have the skills needed to wow our audience. Because what’s the worst that can happen, we fail, and is that really so bad after all.
If you are interested in help on your next project we would love to work with you and your team reach out to us at ethos3.com today for more information.
