Team Alpha 375

Overcoming Fear of Failure

By Craig Ballantyne

Last year, right around this time, I failed to reach a major goal. In fact, a year has gone by and to be frank, I STILL haven't made that much progress on it.

But I keep trying. I'm NOT giving up on this thing.

Let me tell you a little more about it, because when you hear my story and about how I've dealt with the failure, it will give you the inspiration you need to take action.

After all, I know that fear of failure is one of the biggest factors holding you back from success. So many readers told me this in the Early to Rise surveys you have filled out.

Common responses included...

"I need to overcome the fear and inertia of getting started."

"I have a fear of my product not being good enough even though I know the content is solid. It's all about fear. I have been reading about this stuff for 5 years but I'm terrified."

"How do I break through the fear of failure to get moving?"

So much fear...and to be honest, I was surprised.

After all, what are you really scared of?

Failing?

Who cares, I do that all the time and then I tell my email list of 90,000 people ALL about it.

Let me explain one of my biggest failures, the one that has dogged me for over a year.

For weeks I had been telling my fitness readers about my Turbulence Training Certification. I truly believed that I could convince 50 personal trainers to join my mission of helping 1 Million men and women transform their lives.

I put that out there in several emails, a 20-minute video on TurbulenceTrainingCertification (go ahead, watch it, it means a lot to me), my life's vision, and several other pieces of content, all sent to my 90,000-plus readers and 9,700 Facebook Fans.

Everyone knew my goal.

And I failed to reach it.

By the end of the week, I had only 25 trainers join me. I missed my goal by 50%. Some would call that a failure.

And some of those folks would even be happy to hear it.

So let the haters hate.

Let the Schadenfreude begin.

Let the doubters rejoice.

I don't care.

I don't care what other people think and I quickly re-framed my failure to the reality that this was still a fantastic result.

Twenty-five trainers have joined my mission. Five of them have gone to massive results in their business in the last year. One of them, Mike Whitfield, has become a bona fide superstar in the fitness industry. Ten years ago I would never have imagined that other trainers would believe in me so much.

Now I'm twice as motivated and inspired to work harder on my mission, and to help those 25 trainers who have put their faith in me.

I haven't failed.

Instead, I simply shot for the stars and landed on the moon, right?

"The greater danger for most of us lies not in setting our aim too high and falling short; but in setting our aim too low, and achieving our mark." – Michaelangelo

So you have two choices...

1) You can sit at home, paralyzed by the fear of failure, worried that what...that someone, somewhere on the Internet, someone that you'll never ever meet, will laugh at you?

Scared that your obnoxious brother-in-law who already thinks you're a failure will now have "proof" that you are?

Whatever it is you fear, your first option is to let it kill your hopes and dreams, do nothing, and never know what could have been.

or...

2) You can give up your excuses, you can banish your fear of failure, you can stop caring about what others think of you, and you can take action on your dreams.

Listen, critics will always find something wrong with you.

There are "hate sites" devoted to Mother Theresa, for crying out loud.

If people hate her, there's going to be someone who hates you.

Get over it.

Lose the fear of failure.

Pardon me. Lose your SELFISH fear of failure, because for every day that you selfishly protect your ego behind the veil of inaction, someone with REAL problems sits at home without your solution.

So they suffer...

..but at least no one thinks you're a failure, right?

Yeah, right.

Let me give you a little dose of reality on that front, my friend. Allow me to share with you a little of my trademarked politically incorrect truth...

..plenty of people already think you're a failure.

That's human nature. Not everyone loves you.

I know. Shock! Horror!

But it doesn't matter what those people think.

You need to GET OVER IT.

It's time for you to give it up, to crush your fear of failure, and change the world for the better.

Or forever remain unfulfilled.

It's your choice.

You can't be afraid to try new things and possibly fail. Only by "Failing Forward", will we breakthrough and learn new things about ourselves that allow us to reach new levels. Failure isn't bad. Failure isn't final. No matter how BIG of a failure you have to deal with, you can always RISE up and overcome it - and even become STRONGER because of it. So never, ever, EVER give up.

You know what I suggest.

Fail forward fast.