i am afraid of failure essay

Home — Essay Samples — Life — Fear of Failure — The Fear of Failure As My Biggest Failure in Life

Why My Biggest Fear is Failure

• Categories: Failure Fear Fear of Failure

About this sample

Words: 595 |

Published: Sep 1, 2020

Words: 595 | Page: 1 | 3 min read

Works Cited

• Brown, B. (2010). The Gifts of Imperfection: Let Go of Who You Think You're Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are. Hazelden Publishing.
• Duckworth, A. L. (2016). Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance. Scribner.
• Duckworth, A. L., Peterson, C., Matthews, M. D., & Kelly, D. R. (2007). Grit: perseverance and passion for long-term goals. Journal of personality and social psychology, 92(6), 1087.
• Freud, S. (1930). Civilization and its Discontents. Hogarth Press.
• Lazarus, R. S., & Folkman, S. (1984). Stress, appraisal, and coping. Springer Publishing Company.
• Pintrich, P. R., & Schunk, D. H. (2002). Motivation in Education: Theory, Research, and Applications (2nd ed.). Prentice Hall.
• Ryan, R. M., & Deci, E. L. (2000). Self-determination theory and the facilitation of intrinsic motivation, social development, and well-being. American Psychologist, 55(1), 68-78.
• Seligman, M. E. (2011). Flourish: A Visionary New Understanding of Happiness and Well-being. Atria Books.
• Sweeny, K., & Duckworth, A. L. (2019). Failure as Fuel: A Self-Regulatory Approach. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 13(11), e12508.
• Tice, D. M., & Bratslavsky, E. (2000). Giving in to feel good: The place of emotion regulation in the context of general self-control. Psychological Inquiry, 11(3), 149-159.

Cite this Essay

Let us write you an essay from scratch

• 450+ experts on 30 subjects ready to help
• Custom essay delivered in as few as 3 hours

Get high-quality help

Prof Ernest (PhD)

Verified writer

• Expert in: Life

+ 120 experts online

By clicking “Check Writers’ Offers”, you agree to our terms of service and privacy policy . We’ll occasionally send you promo and account related email

No need to pay just yet!

Related Essays

1 pages / 514 words

2 pages / 911 words

1 pages / 507 words

2 pages / 1040 words

Remember! This is just a sample.

You can get your custom paper by one of our expert writers.

121 writers online

Still can’t find what you need?

Browse our vast selection of original essay samples, each expertly formatted and styled

Related Essays on Fear of Failure

I was 18 years old when I got married and I belong to a very conservative family, a family where good daughters never say “NO” to their parents. My father wants to me to get married and all I said was if that makes you happy [...]

Failure is an inherent part of life, and it is something that everyone experiences at some point in their lives. However, for some individuals, including myself, the fear of failure can become debilitating, leading to feelings [...]

It’s not necessary that every time you try something new will definitely gives you success. By something we mean new in business or in life. One bad thing in a day or in a life doesn’t define your rest of the day or rest of your [...]

In this essay I’m going to talk about some of the fears that are around and fueling procrastination. These fears are present in people of all shapes and sizes from teens to adults, and it undoubtedly interrupts and interferes [...]

This study investigated the rationale of people who engage in the behavior of being afraid and threatened to failure in educational setting. The aspects of viewing fear of failure as a motive to avoid failure or as a [...]

Rose was 15 when her parents informed her that they would need to move for her father’s work. Rose was dealing with the change alright until the first day of school in the new school. There she was full of anxiety and fear with [...]

Related Topics

By clicking “Send”, you agree to our Terms of service and Privacy statement . We will occasionally send you account related emails.

Where do you want us to send this sample?

By clicking “Continue”, you agree to our terms of service and privacy policy.

Be careful. This essay is not unique

This essay was donated by a student and is likely to have been used and submitted before

Download this Sample

Free samples may contain mistakes and not unique parts

Sorry, we could not paraphrase this essay. Our professional writers can rewrite it and get you a unique paper.

Please check your inbox.

We can write you a custom essay that will follow your exact instructions and meet the deadlines. Let's fix your grades together!

Get Your Personalized Essay in 3 Hours or Less!

We use cookies to personalyze your web-site experience. By continuing we’ll assume you board with our cookie policy .

• Instructions Followed To The Letter
• Deadlines Met At Every Stage
• Unique And Plagiarism Free

• Bipolar Disorder
• Therapy Center
• When To See a Therapist
• Types of Therapy
• Best Online Therapy
• Best Couples Therapy
• Best Family Therapy
• Managing Stress
• Sleep and Dreaming
• Understanding Emotions
• Self-Improvement
• Healthy Relationships
• Student Resources
• Personality Types
• Guided Meditations
• Verywell Mind Insights
• 2024 Verywell Mind 25
• Mental Health in the Classroom
• Editorial Process
• Meet Our Review Board
• Crisis Support

How to Deal With the Fear of Failure

Kendra Cherry, MS, is a psychosocial rehabilitation specialist, psychology educator, and author of the "Everything Psychology Book."

Rachel Goldman, PhD FTOS, is a licensed psychologist, clinical assistant professor, speaker, wellness expert specializing in eating behaviors, stress management, and health behavior change.

Verywell / Jiaqi Zhou

Characteristics of the Fear of Failure

• Identifying

Causes of the Fear of Failure

Treatment for fear of failure, coping with fear of failure.

The fear of failure, also known as atychiphobia , is an irrational and persistent fear of failing. This fear can stem from a number of sources. Sometimes it might emerge in response to a specific situation. In other cases, it might be related to another mental health condition such as anxiety or depression .

The fear of failure may also be related to being a perfectionist . Because perfectionists have such high expectations for how they expect things to turn out, they may experience a nagging fear that they won't live up to those often unrealistically high standards.

This article discusses the signs of a fear of failure and what causes this fear. It also explores treatments that can help and how to prevent this fear from holding you back.

Get Help Now

We've tried, tested, and written unbiased reviews of the best online therapy programs including Talkspace, BetterHelp, and ReGain. Find out which option is the best for you.

A fear of failure can produce emotional and behavioral symptoms. Some of the common signs of this fear include:

• Feeling a loss of control
• Helplessness
• Powerlessness

In addition to emotional and behavioral symptoms, people with a fear of failure may also experience physical symptoms including rapid heart rate, chest tightness, trembling, dizziness, lightheadedness, sweating, and digestive problems.

Identifying the Fear of Failure

The fear of failure may affect people in a variety of ways, which means that it's not always easy to identify. Some of the ways that people may experience the fear of failure include:

• Believing that you don't have the skills or knowledge to achieve something
• Feeling like you won't be able to achieve your goals
• Procrastinating to the point that it affects your performance or ability to finish on time
• Telling people that you will probably fail so that expectations remain low
• Underestimating your own abilities to avoid feeling let down
• Worrying that imperfections or shortcomings will make other people think less of you
• Worrying that you will disappoint others if you fail

In some cases, the fear of failure may cause people to avoid trying altogether. Because they are so afraid that they will try and not succeed, they simply decide not to try at all in order to prevent potential pain, embarrassment, or disappointment.

Atychiphobia

While fear of failure is not listed as a distinct condition in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-5) , it is possible that you might be diagnosed with a specific phobia if your symptoms meet certain diagnostic criteria. In order to be diagnosed with a specific phobia, your symptoms must:

• Involve excessive and unreasonable fear
• Involve an immediate anxiety response
• Be marked by avoidance or extreme distress 
• Limit your ability to function normally
• Last as least six months and not be due to another condition

A fear of failure can have a wide variety of causes. Some potential causes include:

Critical Upbringing

People who grow up in households that are highly critical or unsupportive may be more likely to experience a fear of failure. Because they felt that they could never live up to their family's expectations during childhood, they may continue to fear making mistakes as adults. 

Definitions of Failure

People often have different definitions of what failure means. For some people, it means not achieving something exactly as they planned. This can create a set of expectations that is very difficult to live up to.

Anxiety is also influenced by genetic factors. If members of your family also have anxiety conditions, you might be more likely to develop fears and anxieties yourself.

Perfectionism

Fear of failure sometimes stems from perfectionism. When people have extremely high standards, it often seems like nothing lives up to their expectations. This includes their own performance and achievements. Because they fear not reaching the high standards they've set, they may experience an intense fear of failing.

People who experienced a difficult or even traumatic failure may also be very afraid of repeating that experience in the future.

Having a panic attack during a presentation or being ridiculed for your performance, for example, could contribute to feelings of fear. Negative consequences resulting from failure, such as losing a job or not getting into a college, can also be risk factors that contribute to the fear of failure.

While everyone may be afraid of failing from time to time, it becomes more serious when it inhibits your ability to pursue your goals and achieve the things you want to accomplish in life.

Impact of the Fear of Failure

A fear of failure can take a toll on a person’s belief in their abilities and their motivation to pursue their goals. 

• Low self-esteem : People who fear failure may also engage in negative self-talk or have low self-confidence that makes it difficult to pursue goals. 
• Poor motivation : When people fear failure, they may also experience a lack of motivation that makes it difficult to get started on projects and work toward goals. When something seems too challenging or involves learning new skills, people may simply give up or refuse to get involved.
• Self-sabotage : It isn't uncommon for people who fear failure to engage in acts of self-handicapping that undermine their own chances of success. Research has found, for example, that students who fear failing often engage in self-handicapping behaviors that actually limit academic success and perpetuate failure.   
• Shame : The fear of failure often stems from a fear of experiencing shame or embarrassment. Failing can trigger feelings worthlessness , so avoiding trying in the first place can sometimes serve as a way to protect the self from disappointment, regret, and sadness.

Treatment for the fear of failure depends on a variety of factors including how you experience this fear and the impact that it has on your life. In many cases, people can use self-help strategies to cope with these feelings. 

If your fear of failure is impeding your ability to function normally, it is important to talk to a professional. Treatment options for a fear of failure might include:

Psychotherapy

Psychotherapy can help you address the thoughts, emotions, and behaviors that contribute to a fear of failure. Cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) is a type of therapy that helps people identify and change negative thought patterns that contribute to feelings of fear. Mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) may also be helpful.

Medications

Medications may be prescribed to help you manage feelings of anxiety or depression that might be linked to your fear. Selective-serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) are a type of antidepressant that are commonly prescribed to treat mood conditions and anxiety. Anti-anxiety medications, such as Xanax (alprazolam) and Ativan (lorazepam), may also be prescribed.

In many cases, a combination of these two treatment options with lifestyle changes may be the most effective

There are also a number of strategies that you can use to help reduce feelings of fear about failure. Some of these include:

Consider the Outcomes

Sometimes thinking about the worst possible outcome—and then coming up with a plan for how you’ll deal with it—can help reduce anxiety when you are pursuing your goals. 

Focus on the Things You Can Control

Instead of worrying about aspects of the situation that you have no power over, focus your energy on things that you can control. 

When you are facing a challenge that might trigger your fear of failing, work on developing alternative plans just in case your initial efforts don’t go as planned. Having a plan B (or plan C) can help you feel less anxious and more secure.

Redefine Failure

Changing how you think about failure may also help reduce your feelings of fear. Failure is part of life and can be an important opportunity to learn and acquire new skills.

It can certainly be disappointing, but it is important to maintain a healthy perspective toward the potential benefits of failing from time to time. Remember that success is often reached through a series of progressive failures that lead to new information, skills, and strategies.

Use Positive Thinking

Avoid negative self-talk that can undermine your confidence and create feelings of anxiety. Instead, work on thinking more like an optimist to keep your motivation high.

Visualization May Backfire

While visualization is often touted as a tool for success, research actually shows that this motivational strategy can backfire with people who have a high fear of failure. One study found that people with a strong fear of failing experienced strong negative moods after they engaged in an activity that involved visualizing success.

A Word From Verywell

The fear of failure is something that everyone experiences from time to time, but this can become much more problematic when such feelings become persistent. Practice self-compassion and work on taking small steps toward building your confidence and managing your fears.

American Psychiatric Association.  Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders , 5th ed . Washington, DC; 2013.

Meier SM, Deckert J. Genetics of anxiety disorders . Curr Psychiatry Rep . 2019;21(3):16. doi:10.1007/s11920-019-1002-7

Kelly JD 4th. Your best life: Perfectionism--the bane of happiness . Clin Orthop Relat Res . 2015;473(10):3108-11. doi:10.1007/s11999-015-4279-9

Bartels JM, Herman WE.  Fear of failure, self-handicapping, and negative emotions in response to failure ; 2011.

Hjeltnes A, Binder PE, Moltu C, Dundas I. Facing the fear of failure: An explorative qualitative study of client experiences in a mindfulness-based stress reduction program for university students with academic evaluation anxiety . Int J Qual Stud Health Well-being . 2015;10:27990. doi:10.3402/qhw.v10.27990

Langens TA. Tantalizing fantasies: positive imagery induces negative mood in individuals high in fear of failure . Imagination, Cognition and Personality . 2002;21(4):281-292. doi:10.2190/HGH6-3RM6-2VCG-YCQH

By Kendra Cherry, MSEd Kendra Cherry, MS, is a psychosocial rehabilitation specialist, psychology educator, and author of the "Everything Psychology Book."

Success Mindset

Why you have the fear of failure (and how to overcome it).

Fear is part of human nature. As an entrepreneur, I faced this same fear. My ego and identity became intertwined with my work, and when things didn’t go as planned, I completely shut down. I overcame this unhealthy relationship with fear, and I believe that you can, too.

Fear of failure can be so strong that avoiding failure eclipses the motivation to succeed. Insecurity about doing things incorrectly causes many people to unconsciously sabotage their chances for success.

Together we’ll examine what can cause fear of failure and why it can hold you back. We’ll also look at how to overcome the fear of failure so that you can use failure to your advantage instead of letting it run your life.

As a disclaimer, the intense fear of failure, or atychiphobia, may require attention from a medical provider. If you are experiencing difficulty functioning in your daily life due to your fear of failure or symptoms of a panic attack, reach out to a medical professional for further help. [1]

Table of Contents

1. childhood environment, 2. perfectionism, 3. over-personalization, unhealthy organization culture, miss out on valuable opportunities, high achievers become losers, loss of creativity, 1. figure out where the fear comes from, 2. reframe beliefs about your goal, 3. learn to think positive, 4. visualize all potential outcomes, 5. look at the worst-case scenario, 6. have a backup plan, 7. learn from whatever happens, final thoughts, what causes fear of failure.

Fear of failure will cause us to avoid potentially harmful situations, but it will also keep us from reaching our full potential. Fear of failure keeps us from trying, creates self-doubt , stalls progress, and may lead us to go against our morals.

What causes a fear of failure? Here are the main reasons why fear of failing exists:

Being raised in an environment where you were taught that failure is unacceptable can cause fear of failure to be a learned behavior. That fear of failure can lead to emotional and psychological issues including panic attacks, low self-esteem, anxiety, depression, and shame. [2] You may have had people in your life who gave you ultimatums and enforced fear-based rules.

For perfectionists, failure is so terrible and humiliating that they don’t try. Stepping outside your comfort zone becomes terrifying. Perfectionism can similarly arise from childhood if the idea of anything less than perfect was perceived as a failure. The ego usually leads us to want to aim for perfection and our wanting to please others.

Ego may lead us to over-identify with failures. You may believe that your failures significantly inform how others see you and you fear being viewed as a failure. [3]

Why the Fear of Failure Holds You Back

We hear a lot about being positive. Maybe we also need to recognize that the negative parts of our lives and experience have just as important a role to play in finding success in work and in life.

Too many organizations today have cultures of perfection: a set of organizational beliefs that any failure is unacceptable. Imagine the stress and terror in an organization like that. The lying, cheating, falsification of data, and hiding of problems—until they become crises that defy being hidden any longer.

Contrary to this mindset, a recent study shows that cultivating a fear mindset holds organizations back from making profitable decisions. [4] .

Many fail because of their ego-driven commitment to what worked in the past. You often see this with people more advanced in their career, especially those who made their names by introducing some critical change years ago.

They shy away from further innovation because they are afraid of failure. Besides, they reason the success of something new might even prove that those achievements they made in the past weren’t so great after all. Why take the risk when you can hang on to your reputation by doing nothing?

Such people are so deeply invested in their egos and the glories of their past that they prefer to set aside opportunities for future glory rather than risk even the possibility of failure.

Successful people like to win and achieve high standards. When a positive trait, like achievement, becomes too strong in someone’s life, it’s on the way to becoming a major obstacle.

Achievement is a powerful value for many successful people. They achieve at everything they do: school, college, sports, the arts, hobbies, work. Each fresh achievement adds to the power of the value in their lives.

Gradually, failure becomes unthinkable. Maybe they’ve never failed yet in anything that they’ve done, so they have no experience of rising above it.

The simplest way to do this is never to take a risk, stick rigidly to what you know you can do, protect yourself, work the longest hours, double and triple check everything, and be the most conscientious and conservative person in the universe.

Everyone likes to succeed. The problem comes when fear of failure is dominant, when you can no longer accept the inevitability of making mistakes, nor recognize the importance of trial and error in finding the most creative solution.

The more creative you are, the more errors you are going to make. Deciding to avoid the errors will destroy your creativity, too.

Balance counts more than you think – some tartness must season the sweetest dish. And a little failure is essential to preserve everyone’s perspective on success.

How to Overcome Fear of Failure (Step-by-Step)

Confronting your fear of failure is proven to help you challenge it. [5]

When you look at the possible roots causing your fear of failure, which ones resonate with you?

Write down where you think the fear comes from, and try to understand it as an outsider.

If it helps, imagine you’re trying to help one of your best friends. Perhaps your fear stems from something that happened in your childhood or a deep-seated insecurity. Naming the source of the fear takes away some of its power.

Having an all-or-nothing mentality leaves you with nothing sometimes. Have a clear vision for what you’d like to accomplish but include learning something new in your goal.

Cultivating a growth mindset where you aim for improvement and learning makes you much less likely to fail. [6] That mindset involves failure, but as long as they achieve their vision of telling great stories, all the stumbling blocks are just opportunities to grow.

Our society is obsessed with success, but it’s important to recognize that even the most successful people encounter failure.

Walt Disney was once fired from a newspaper because they thought he lacked creativity. He went on to start an animation studio that failed. He never gave up, and now Disney is a household name.

If Disney believed the negative feedback, he wouldn’t have made it.

It’s up to you to notice your negative self-talk and identify triggers. The voice inside your head has a great effect on what you do. Replace negative thoughts with positive facts about yourself and the situation. You’ll be able to create a new mental script that you can reach for when you feel negativity creeping in.

Fear of the unknown might keep you from taking a new job. Weigh the pros and cons, and imagine potential successes and failures in making such a life-altering decision. Knowing how things could turn out might help you get unstuck.

There are times when the worst case could be absolutely devastating. In many cases, if something bad happens, it won’t be the end of the world.

It’s important to define how bad the worst-case scenario is in the grand scheme of your life. Sometimes, we give situations more power than they deserve. In most cases, a failure is not permanent.

For example, when you start a new business, it’s bound to be a learning experience. You’ll make decisions that don’t pan out, but often that discomfort is temporary. You can change your strategy and rebound. Even in the worst-case scenario, if the perceived failure led to the end of that business, it might be the launching point for something new.

It never hurts to have a backup plan . The last thing you want to do is scramble for a solution when the worst has happened. The old adage is solid wisdom:

“Hope for the best, prepare for the worst.”

Having a backup plan gives you more confidence to move forward and take calculated risks. Perhaps you’ve applied for a grant to fund an initiative at work. In the worst-case scenario, if you don’t get the grant, are there other ways you could get the funds?

There are usually multiple ways to tackle a problem, so having a backup is a great way to reduce anxiety about possible failure.

Even a less-than-ideal situation can be a great opportunity to make changes and grow.

“Sometimes you win, sometimes you learn.” – John C. Maxwell

Dig deep enough, and you’re bound to find the silver lining. When you’ve learned that “failure” is an opportunity for growth instead of a death sentence, you conquer the fear of failure.

To overcome the fear of failure, we can start by figuring out where it comes from and reframing the way we feel about failure. When failure is a chance for growth and you’ve looked at all possible outcomes it’s easier to overcome fear.

Stay positive, have a backup plan, and learn from whatever happens. Your failures will be sources of education and inspiration rather than humiliation.

“I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” -Thomas A. Edison

Failures can be blessings in disguise. Go boldly in the direction of your dreams and long-term goals.

Don't have time for the full article? Read this.

Overcoming fear of failure can help you start figuring out where it comes from and reframe how you feel about failure.

The fear of failure may be rooted in childhood experiences and feeding the perfectionist ego; we tend to feed our ego when we are driven to take (or not take) action in order to please people.

 When failure is a chance for growth and you’ve looked at all possible outcomes it’s easier to overcome.

Featured photo credit: Patrick Hendry via unsplash.com

How to Use a Planner Effectively

How to Be a Better Planner: Avoid the Planning Fallacy

5 Best Apps to Help You Delegate Tasks Easily

Delegating Leadership Style: What Is It & When To Use It?

The Fear of Delegating Work To Others

Why Is Delegation Important in Leadership?

7 Best Tools for Prioritizing Work

How to Deal with Competing Priorities Effectively

What Is the RICE Prioritization Model And How Does It Work?

4 Exercises to Improve Your Focus

What Is Chronic Procrastination and How To Deal with It

How to Snap Out of Procrastination With ADHD

Are Depression And Procrastination Connected?

Procrastination And Laziness: Their Differences & Connections

Bedtime Procrastination: Why You Do It And How To Break It

15 Books on Procrastination To Help You Start Taking Action

Productive Procrastination: Is It Good or Bad?

The Impact of Procrastination on Productivity

How to Cope With Anxiety-Induced Procrastination

How to Break the Perfectionism-Procrastination Loop

15 Work-Life Balance Books to Help You Take Control of Life

Work Life Balance for Women: What It Means & How to Find It

6 Essential Mindsets For Continuous Career Growth

How to Discover Your Next Career Move Amid the Great Resignation

The Key to Creating a Vibrant (And Magical Life) by Lee Cockerell

9 Tips on How To Disconnect From Work And Stay Present

Work-Life Integration vs Work-Life Balance: Is One Better Than the Other?

How To Practice Self-Advocacy in the Workplace (Go-to Guide)

How to Boost Your Focus And Attention Span

What Are Distractions in a Nutshell?

What Is Procrastination And How To End It

Prioritization — Using Your Time & Energy Effectively

Delegation — Leveraging Your Time & Resources

Your Guide to Effective Planning & Scheduling

The Ultimate Guide to Achieving Goals

How to Find Lasting Motivation

Complete Guide to Getting Back Your Energy

How to Have a Good Life Balance

Explore the time flow system.

About the Time Flow System

Key Philosophy I: Fluid Progress, Like Water

Key Philosophy II: Pragmatic Priorities

Key Philosophy III: Sustainable Momentum

Key Philosophy IV: Three Goal Focus

How the Time Flow System Works

• SUGGESTED TOPICS
• The Magazine
• Newsletters
• Managing Yourself
• Managing Teams
• Work-life Balance
• The Big Idea
• Data & Visuals
• Reading Lists
• Case Selections
• HBR Learning
• Topic Feeds
• Account Settings
• Email Preferences

How to Overcome Your Fear of Failure

• Susan Peppercorn

Think about what may happen if you do nothing.

People are quick to blame themselves for failure. But not doing something because you’re afraid to get started isn’t going to help you grow. Here are four strategies to help you get over the hump. Start by redefining what failure means to you. If you define failure as the discrepancy between what you hope to achieve (such as getting a job offer) and what you might achieve (learning from the experience), you can focus on what you learned, which helps you recalibrate for future challenges. It’s also important to set approach goals instead of avoidance goals: focus on what you want to achieve rather than what you want to avoid. Creating a “fear list” can also help. This is a list of what may not happen as a result of your fear — the cost of inaction. And finally, focus on learning. The chips aren’t always going to fall where you want them to — but if you expect that reality going into an event, you can be prepared to wring the most value out of whatever outcome.

A client (who I’ll call “Alex”) asked me to help him prepare to interview for a CEO role with a start-up. It was the first time he had interviewed for the C-level, and when we met, he was visibly agitated. I asked what was wrong, and he explained that he felt “paralyzed” by his fear of failing at the high-stakes meeting.

• Susan Peppercorn  is an executive career transition coach and speaker. She is the author of  Ditch Your Inner Critic at Work: Evidence-Based Strategies  to Thrive in Your Career. Numerous publications including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Fast Company, the Boston Globe, and SELF Magazine have tapped her for career advice. You can download her free Career Fit Self-Assessment and 25 Steps to a Successful Career Transition .

Partner Center

Go Ahead and Fail

Perfectionism can make you miserable. Here’s how you can muster the courage to mess up.

“ How to Build a Life ” is a weekly column by Arthur Brooks, tackling questions of meaning and happiness.

F or years, I was haunted by a fear of failure. I spent my early adulthood as a professional French hornist, playing in chamber-music ensembles and orchestras. Classical music is a perilous business, relying on absolute precision. Playing the French horn, prone as it is to missing notes, is a virtual high-wire act in every concert. I could go from hero to goat within a few mistakes during a solo. I lived in dread, and it made my life and work misery.

Fear of failure is not just a problem for French hornists. Looking bad in front of others is arguably the most common dread people face. This explains why, for example, researchers have found that public speaking is college students’ most common fear; some scholars have famously asserted that people fear it even more than death. And dread about failing doesn’t just afflict the young or inexperienced: According to a 2018 survey conducted by Norwest Venture Partners, 90 percent of CEOs “admit fear of failure keeps them up at night more than any other concern.”

This particular brand of anxiety appears to be on the rise. According to the World Bank , the percentage of American adults who see good opportunities to start a business but indicate that fear of failure would prevent them from doing so has been increasing for the past two decades. It is approaching the world median, in spite of the fact that the U.S. has long prided itself on being a land of intrepid entrepreneurs.

There are a few possible explanations for this increase. Social media threatens to make every slip-up an extinction-level event, socially and professionally. Meanwhile, a generation of overprotective Baby Boomer parents have shielded their Millennial and Gen Z kids from the small risks and failures that build the emotional fortitude required to withstand the inevitable, larger failures of adulthood.

From the May 2020 issue: What happened to American childhood?

To the extent that this trend extinguishes entrepreneurial behavior, it’s bad enough for our future. But I am less worried about the effect on start-up enterprises than on the enterprise of building happy lives. Fear of failure can have surprisingly harsh consequences for our well-being. For some, it can lead to debilitating anxiety and depression, a diagnosable malady called atychiphobia . But even before it reaches that point, it can steer us away from life’s joyful, fulfilling adventures, by discouraging us from taking risks and trying new things.

Want to stay current with Arthur's writing? Sign up to get an email every time a new column comes out.

T he fear of failure has a number of sources, not all of which are obvious. At first thought, it might seem like it is the dread of some known, bad outcome. For example, I might be afraid to give a presentation for my boss because if I fail, I won’t get a promotion, with clear implications for my career.

But the fear of failure seems to actually be about unknown outcomes, at least for those who are most anxious. In one recent study conducted at University College London, psychologists devised an experiment in which participants had to decide between a series of gambles with guaranteed rewards and a set of bets with potentially higher wins and losses. Based on this, they found that people who suffered from anxiety were the most unable to estimate the best probable reward, which is consistent with earlier research . The implication of this risk aversion is that if you are particularly anxious about failing, it’s the uncertainty about whether you will do so that bothers you more than the actual consequences.

Read: Fear can make you a better person

Researchers have also found that people who strongly fear failure have a composite of two personality characteristics: low achievement orientation (that is, they don’t take much pleasure from accomplishments and meeting goals) and high test anxiety (a fear of not performing well at a crucial moment). In other words, they’re motivated less by the possibility of winning and gaining something of value, and more by their anxiety about the possibility of messing up. Those are some of the same personality traits that drive perfectionism , and can show up in low achievers and high achievers alike.

In fact, perfectionism and the fear of failure go hand in hand: They lead you to believe that success isn’t about doing something good, but about not doing something bad. If you suffer from a fear of failure, you’ll know exactly what I mean. Where striving for success should be an exciting journey toward an amazing destination—as the climber George Mallory said, to ascend the mountain “because it’s there” —it feels instead like an exhausting slog, with all your energy focused on not tumbling over a cliff.

Read: The problem with being perfect

Surprisingly, people who fear failure do not need to extinguish the fear itself—to become more fearless—in order to make themselves happier. Instead, the best way to tame a fear of failure is to hone courage. Stanley Rachman, a psychologist, showed this in his research in the 1980s and then in the following decades on people in dangerous professions, such as paratroopers and bomb defusers. They too tended to fear failure—and messing up in such cases might be dire indeed. But they were able to tap into reserves of courage to act anyway. As Rachman argues, fearlessness is abnormal, and even dangerous, because it leads to foolish risk taking and bad leadership. Courage, on the other hand, helps you to balance prudence and resolve, even if the only thing you’re defusing is an office conflict.

T he good news is that all three of these drivers—an aversion to uncertainty, an attachment to the appearance of perfection, and a lack of courage—are qualities most of us would rather rid ourselves of. Facing the fear of failure is more than just dealing with a problem; it is an opportunity to grow in virtue. You can start this growth with three practices.

1. Focus on the present.

I once had a conversation with an oncologist about what it’s like to give people a dire, late-stage-cancer diagnosis. He said that some of his patients—people with a particular need to control tightly all parts of their lives—would immediately go home and start researching their prognosis on the internet. He would counsel them not to do this, because it would only make them sick with worry.

Instead, he told them, start each day with this mantra: “I do not know what will happen next week or next year. But I know I have the gift of this day, and I will not waste it.” He said it helped not just their outlook about the disease but also their overall approach to life. I recommend this same refrain to anyone suffering from a fear of failure. Own the unknown future through gratitude for the known present, and watch your happiness rise, as you enjoy what you have in front of you.

From the April 2004 issue: The case against perfection

2. Visualize courage.

Remember that one of the most common fears of failure involves public speaking. Even the thought of giving a speech in front of a group makes some people panic. The solution to this problem is simple: exposure. That doesn’t mean you need to haul a soapbox to your town square every day; just simulating a speech environment using virtual reality has been shown to lower people’s fear significantly.

Anyone can use this idea, even without strapping on a VR simulator, through simple concentrated imagination. Instead of avoiding the source of your fear even in your own mind, spend time each day visualizing scary scenarios, including possible failures. Picture yourself acting with courage, despite the fear. I did this extensively early in my teaching career, imagining everything from the prosaic (forgetting my notes) to the absurd (realizing after an hour-long lecture that my fly was unzipped the whole time—something that subsequently happened in real life). I soon found that I was, in fact, more courageous in front of the class as a result.

3. Litanize humility.

In Dante’s Divine Comedy , Satan is depicted as a victim of his terrible pride by being frozen from the waist down—fixed and in agony—in ice of his own making. Fear of failure and perfectionism are like that prideful sea of ice, freezing you in place with thoughts of what others will think of you—or, worse, what you will think of yourself—if you do not succeed at something.

There is a solution that follows Dante’s Catholic sensibility, but that in reality need not be religious at all. An early-20th-century Spanish cardinal, Rafael Merry del Val y Zulueta, composed a beautiful prayer called the “Litany of Humility.” The prayer does not ask that we be spared humiliation, but that we be given the grace to deal with the fear: “From the fear of being humiliated, / Deliver me, O Jesus.” It continues: Deliver me from the fear of being despised. From the fear of suffering rebukes. From the fear of being calumniated. From the fear of being forgotten. And from the fear of being ridiculed.

Make your own version of the litany of humility, religious or not, and recite it each night. Even if the items seem ridiculous to you (“From the fear of messing up my PowerPoint presentation, deliver me”), if you want relief, you have to state your desire. Only then will your fear cease to be a phantom menace and instead become concrete—and thus conquerable.

I f all of the above strategies seem too time consuming, there is one last, tried-and-true method to develop courage in the face of failure: fail. And then, survive what the dark unknown truly holds. That is what eventually cured me.

As I started by telling you, my music career was made miserable by my terror of mistakes. But at least my mouth was occupied with the instrument, so I didn’t have to speak publicly—that really freaked me out. Both those fears came together one fateful day at a chamber-music concert at Carnegie Hall in New York. I was slotted to give a short speech—maybe two minutes—about a piece my ensemble was to play. I stepped out of my chair and walked to the front of the stage, shaking in fear. Then I lost my footing, and literally fell into the audience. Decades later, I can still see it happening, in slow motion. As the audience gasped, I jumped up, my horn badly damaged and my arm injured, and shouted, ridiculously and implausibly, “I’m okay, folks!”

Read: Love is medicine for fear

Years later, I look back on that experience and laugh. But it wasn’t just funny—it was an incredible gift. Since scoring a perfect 10 in humiliation that day, I care very little about looking ridiculous. I take more risks and show my personality in ways I don’t think I would otherwise. Failure set me free.

• Type 2 Diabetes
• Heart Disease
• Digestive Health
• Multiple Sclerosis
• Diet & Nutrition
• Supplements
• Health Insurance
• Public Health
• Patient Rights
• Caregivers & Loved Ones
• End of Life Concerns
• Health News
• Thyroid Test Analyzer
• Doctor Discussion Guides
• Hemoglobin A1c Test Analyzer
• Lipid Test Analyzer
• Complete Blood Count (CBC) Analyzer
• What to Buy
• Editorial Process
• Meet Our Medical Expert Board

How to Overcome a Fear of Failure

• Characteristics

The fear of failure for many people is so intense it can impact their daily lives and ability to complete tasks. When thought of as a specific phobia, the fear of failure is known as atychiphobia .

It can be brought on by a variety of negative experiences associated with failure. Or, it can result from something directly learned or observed from others.

Read on to learn about how atychiphobia is characterized and what can be done to alleviate it.

Commercial Eye / Getty Images

What Is Fear of Failure?

Everyone worries about failing at some point in their lives, but for those with atychiphobia, the fear of failure is pervasive and extreme.

People with atychiphobia may internalize failure, viewing it as a reflection of their worth. This causes them to see failure as a constant threat. They worry it will lead to embarrassment or that others will view them negatively.

Ranging from mild to severe, this irrational fear of failure can prevent people from trying to achieve goals and can cause paralyzing anxiety.

Fear of failure may also be rooted in other anxiety disorders and is tied to perfectionism .

Atychiphobia vs. Perfectionism

While atychiphobia and perfectionism have some similarities, there are distinct differences. A person with atychiphobia will primarily focus on and worry about failure. Someone with perfectionism typically has high personal standards and will strive to be (or appear to be) perfect.

Characteristics of Fear of Failure

Fearing failure to the point that it causes you to avoid situations and prevents you from achieving goals could mean you're experiencing atychiphobia.

The fear of failure can manifest in a number of ways, both physically and emotionally.

Physical Symptoms

• Sleep difficulties, often due to overthinking and severe anxiety
• An upset stomach or other digestive distress
• Joint and muscle pain
• Difficulty breathing
• Racing or pounding heart
• Chest pain or tightness
• Trembling or shaking
• Dizziness or light-headedness
• Hot or cold flashes
• Tingling sensations

Emotional Symptoms

• Feeling insecure and worrying excessively about failing
• Procrastinating/avoiding tasks that trigger anxiety
• Intense feelings of anxiety, fear, and panic when faced with situations that don't have a guarantee of success
• Lack of setting goals and working on goals
• Excessive focus on the future
• Engaging in all-or-nothing thinking
• Thinking you lack the skills to manage a situation or fulfill a task
• Missing deadlines or being late with assignments
• "Self-sabotaging" (failing by not trying instead of risking trying and failing)
• Feeling an intense need to escape
• Feeling “unreal”/detached from yourself
• Fear of losing control
• Knowing the fear is irrational, but being unable to control it

Diagnosing Fear of Failure

Although more complex than many other phobias, atychiphobia can fall under the umbrella of specific phobias. If the fear of failure is impacting your life, it's worth seeking professional help, such as with a mental health professional.

Mental health providers use criteria in the " Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders " (DSM–5) to diagnose a phobia. Persons diagnosed with a specific phobia have a persistent and excessive fear (typically lasting more than six months) that interferes with daily activities at school, work, or home life.

Your mental health provider will ask you specific questions about your symptoms. They may also ask about your medical and psychiatric history. This information will be used to determine if you meet the diagnostic criteria for a phobia.

Famous Failures

Even successful people fail sometimes:

• Basketball great Michael Jordan didn’t make the varsity basketball team in his sophomore year of high school.
• Successful filmmaker Steven Spielberg was rejected by a film school three times.
• World-renowned entertainer Beyoncé lost on the TV competition show "Star Search" as part of her group Girls Tyme.
• Esteemed physicist Albert Einstein failed the entrance exam to a polytechnic school.
• Singer-songwriter Katy Perry's first album only sold 200 copies.
• Multitalented director, actor, and playwright Tyler Perry's first play was attended by only 30 people.

What Causes Fear of Failure

Specific phobias can be caused by a number of factors, including:

• Direct learning experiences : A traumatic experience in the feared situation, such as failing at something that had significant consequences or experiencing humiliation after a failure
• Observational learning experiences : Seeing others experience the feared situation, or living with that phobia, including growing up in a household in which an adult of significance such as a parent had a fear of failure
• Informational learning : Learning about the source of fear through avenues like the news, books, or television

Some factors that may be involved with fear of failure specifically include:

• Perfectionism, a personality style characterized by viewing anything short of perfection as being unacceptable
• Self-perception that is based on how others see you, and a fear of being viewed as a failure
• Growing up in a critical environment, unsupportive of mistakes or failures

Treating Atychiphobia

Professional treatments are available for specific phobias, including fear of failure.

Psychotherapy

Psychotherapy is a broad term that encompasses many types of talk therapy . Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is a type of psychotherapy often used to treat phobias.

Psychodynamic psychotherapy is an approach that helps people better understand underlying conflicts and dynamics contributing to irrational fears of failure.

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy

CBT involves identifying unhealthy or harmful thinking and behavior patterns and changing them into healthy ones.

CBT for phobias may include exposure therapy, in which you are gradually introduced to the source of your phobia with increasing intensity in a controlled environment.

Medication is used less commonly than therapy for fear of failure, but antianxiety medications may be prescribed if you and your healthcare provider feel it would be beneficial.

Coping with Fear of Failure

Self-help is often suggested as a first-line treatment for fear of failure, depending on the severity of the phobia, access to professional therapy, and the amount of support needed.

Some ways to address your fear of failure include:

Redefine Failure

Changing the way you see failure can help you cope with it.

Look at failure as:

• An opportunity to learn
• A natural and universal part of life experienced by everyone
• A challenge to tackle instead of a threat

Be Pragmatic

Try to look at the situation or task as it really is, asking yourself:

• What are the likely outcomes?
• What can I do if the worst outcome happens?
• How can I plan for addressing challenges as they arise?

Be Kind to Yourself

• Recognize that some failure is inevitable for everyone.
• Practice forgiving yourself when you do fail.
• Focus on the failure as a failed task, not an indication of your self-worth.
• Look at what went right in the situation, even if the overall goal was not met.
• Challenge negative self-talk.

Mindfulness Techniques

Mindfulness and relaxation exercises can help you feel calm in the moment. They can also help to manage your overall anxiety. Exercises to try include:

• Deep breathing exercises
• Engaging your five senses—sight, sound, touch, smell, and taste—to help bring you to the present moment. For instance, notice four things that you can feel. Observe and describe their texture to help ground yourself.

Atychiphobia is an extreme fear of failure. It falls under the umbrella of specific phobias. This irrational fear of failure can prevent you from trying to achieve goals and can cause paralyzing anxiety.

If the fear of failure is impacting your life, it's worth seeking professional help, such as by seeing a mental health professional. Treatments are available for specific phobias, including psychotherapy and medication.

Certain self-help techniques, like practicing mindfulness and challenging negative self-talk, can also be beneficial.

National Institute of Mental Health. Specific phobias.

Kentucky Counseling Center. Atychiphobia, fear of failure: how to overcome it?

Dinç S, Ekşi H. A psychological counseling study on fear of failure and academic procrastination with a spiritually oriented cognitive behavioral group . Spiritual Psychology and Counseling. 2019;4(3):219-235. doi: 10.37898/spc.2019.4.3.85 

Curran T, Hill AP.  Perfectionism is increasing over time: A meta-analysis of birth cohort differences from 1989 to 2016 .  Psychol Bull . 2019;145(4):410-429. doi:10.1037/bul0000138

HelpGuide. Phobias and irrational fears .

Ph.D IM, Ph.D REM.  Phobias: The Psychology of Irrational Fear: The Psychology of Irrational Fear . ABC-CLIO; 2015.

World Health Organization. Phobias .

Penn Psychiatry. Specific phobias .

Reader's Digest. 14 ironic “failures” of wildly successful people . Updated October, 2021.

American Psychiatric Association. What is psychotherapy?

National Health Services. Treatment - phobias .

Greater Good. Three ways to overcome fear of failure at work .

Brock L. 3 Easy anxiety relief exercises you can use anywhere . Michigan Medicine.

Montero-Marin J, Garcia-Campayo J, Pérez-Yus MC, Zabaleta-del-Olmo E, Cuijpers P. Meditation techniques  v  . relaxation therapies when treating anxiety: a meta-analytic review .  Psychol Med . 2019;49(13):2118-2133. doi:10.1017/S0033291719001600

By Heather Jones Jones is a freelance writer with a strong focus on health, parenting, disability, and feminism.

Why Fear of Failure Can Keep You Stuck

There are many reasons why we are afraid of failure. find out what yours is..

Posted December 27, 2017 | Reviewed by Jessica Schrader

• What Is Fear?
• Find a therapist to combat fear and anxiety

Fear is one of the most powerful forces in life. It affects the decisions you make, the actions you take, and the outcomes you achieve. Who you are and what you do has at one point or another been influenced by fear. And while the primary role of fear is to protect you, fear very often becomes a significant obstacle that stands between you and your goals . Being successful relies to a large extent on knowing how to leverage fear.

Fear comes in many different forms. There are a variety of things that we are afraid of. Some are very specific, like dogs or spiders, and some are more general, like being afraid to try new things or speaking your mind in front of others. Among these different types of fear, there is one that can have a direct impact on your potential for success: fear of failure.

Fear of failure is the emotional, cognitive, and behavioral reaction to the negative consequences you anticipate for failing to achieve a goal. It is the intense worry, the negative thinking , and the reluctance to take action you experience, when you imagine all the horrible things that could happen if you failed to achieve a goal.

Fear of failure can cause many headaches. The psychology literature outlines a whole list of problems related to atychiphobia (the geeky name for fear of failure). 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. For example, they may choose to work overtime because they don’t want to be perceived as slackers by their managers and thus risk getting fired, instead of working overtime to finish a new project that they hope will have a huge impact on their career . In addition, they tend to avoid situations in which they expect they will be evaluated and judged. For example, they may avoid making a sales pitch to an important client, for fear of failing to be persuasive enough to close the deal. Conversely, they may set lower standards for themselves on purpose, even though they know they can do better. In the previous example, they would switch the target from closing the deal, to simply making the phone call. Aiming to simply make the call has a much lower risk of failure than attempting to close a deal. In addition, people with fear of failure create obstacles intentionally, a process called self-handicapping, to undermine their efforts to achieve a goal, so that they can later blame the obstacles, rather than themselves. For example, they may schedule the sales call at lunch, when their prospective client is probably unavailable, so that they can attribute the lack of success to never having connected with the client.

In the long-run, fear of failure could cause even bigger problems that affect a person’s physical and mental health. People with fear of failure often experience fatigue and low energy, they feel emotionally drained, they are more dissatisfied with their lives, they experience chronic worry and hopelessness, and their performance in the relevant domains becomes objectively worse.

Let’s break it down

While we often talk about fear of failure as a unitary concept, researchers in this domain posit that fear of failure is multifaceted. There are different types of consequences that we fear we will suffer, should we fail to achieve our goal. This means that each time we experience fear of failure it may be for a different reason, and depending on the reason, we will react to and cope with our fear differently.

What are the consequences of failing that scare us enough to prevent us from trying?

1. Failing is embarrassing

No one is proud of failing. People don’t congratulate one another for failing to lose weight, failing to graduate, or failing to advance in their careers. In fact, if there is a feeling that failing never causes, that would be pride. But it does cause shame . Failing is embarrassing. What will people think? How can I tell them that I wasn’t able to get the promotion, write the book, or pass my licensing exam? Will they think I am not trying hard enough or that I am not meant to achieve big things? Will they feel sorry for me? When your headspace is occupied with such thoughts, fear of failure intensifies and blocks you from taking action.

2. Failing means I don’t have what it takes

Success, for many people, is intertwined with their sense of self-worth . It is a form of validation that they have what it takes to be successful. Success, and consequently failure, is a measure of who they are. Therefore, they interpret failing as evidence that that they aren’t smart, skilled or talented enough to succeed. So, you may choose not to try at all or to go for the low hanging fruit, because not going after an important goal is less painful than finding out that you are not competent enough to achieve it.

3. Failing means I’m stuck

The reason we so fervently—and sometimes desperately—set goals is so that we can control our future. Success means you can shape your future the way you want it. But failure makes the future uncertain. What will happen if I fail? What will I do if my plans don’t come through? How will I manage the losses? Will I ever create the life I want? The fear of an uncertain future can be powerful enough to keep you stuck in a less than ideal, but relatively unambiguous present.

4. Failing means I’ll become irrelevant

Given society’s obsession with success and successful people, there is an implicit fear that failure is social suicide . Failing means that people will lose interest in you and eventually forget about you. If they don’t see a winner in you, they may no longer be willing to help you or work with you. You worry that failing means losing the opportunity to increase your social influence and be sought after. In short, you fear that if word goes around that you failed to achieve your goal, your social stock will plummet.

5. Failing means letting people down

Another consequence of failing is the impact you imagine your lack of success could have on others. You assume that failing to achieve your goal will leave many important people in your life, like your family, your friends, or your employers, disappointed. The people that matter to you will be unhappy that you aren’t able to deliver on your promises, they will criticize your shortcomings, and they will lose trust in you.

6. Failing means I have a lot to lose

From a practical point of view, failure translates into actual losses. If you are failing a class in school and have to take it over, that translates into a couple thousand of dollars per credit. If your business is failing to become profitable, you will have wasted your savings, which you used up to get it off the ground. And what about your time and effort? If your pursuit doesn’t yield results, you have wasted time and energy that you could have allocated to other tasks and projects.

These are some of the consequences of failing that keep people worried and anxious and prevent them from pursuing challenging goals. The alternative, of course, is even worse. Choosing not to pursue these goals means never giving them a chance to materialize. Fear of failure keeps you safe, but small. It doesn’t allow you to try new things, to take on new challenges, or to expose yourself to new situations. But it doesn’t have to. You can conquer the fear of failure easily when you understand better what causes it and how it affects you. Which of these consequences are you mostly scared of?

Theo Tsaousides, Ph.D. is a neuropsychologist, assistant professor, and author of the book Brainblocks: Overcoming the Seven Hidden Barriers to Success .

• Find a Therapist
• Find a Treatment Center
• Find a Psychiatrist
• Find a Support Group
• Find Online Therapy
• United States
• Brooklyn, NY
• Chicago, IL
• Houston, TX
• Los Angeles, CA
• New York, NY
• Portland, OR
• San Diego, CA
• San Francisco, CA
• Seattle, WA
• Washington, DC
• Asperger's
• Bipolar Disorder
• Chronic Pain
• Eating Disorders
• Passive Aggression
• Personality
• Goal Setting
• Positive Psychology
• Stopping Smoking
• Low Sexual Desire
• Relationships
• Child Development
• Self Tests NEW
• Therapy Center
• Diagnosis Dictionary
• Types of Therapy

At any moment, someone’s aggravating behavior or our own bad luck can set us off on an emotional spiral that threatens to derail our entire day. Here’s how we can face our triggers with less reactivity so that we can get on with our lives.

• Emotional Intelligence
• Gaslighting
• Affective Forecasting
• Neuroscience

How to Overcome Fear of Failure: Your Ultimate Guide

Very few of us know how to fail well. Intellectually, we may know that we need a growth mindset in order to develop, and yet failure remains an experience that is often associated with shame and embarrassment.

Failure can also be socially stigmatized. How, then, can we overcome our fear of failure so that we can truly benefit from what failing has to teach us?

Before you continue, we thought you might like to download our three Positive Psychology Exercises for free . These science-based exercises explore fundamental aspects of positive psychology, including strengths, values, and self-compassion, and will give you the tools to enhance the wellbeing of your clients, students, or employees.

This Article Contains

What is fear of failure 3 examples, 15 common symptoms of fear of failure, 6 psychology theories about fear of failure, 2 fascinating research findings, how to overcome fear of failure, overcoming fear of failure at work, 3 activities for individuals and groups, 3 tests and assessment questionnaires, interesting books about fear of failure, resources from positivepsychology.com, a take-home message.

There are various reasons we may fear failure. Perhaps the most common is that our self-esteem tends to be tied to achievement and success.

When we fail at something — be that a project at work, a job interview, an exam, a competition — or if our relationship breaks down or our business goes under, our self-image suffers. We may feel worthless, and we may harshly castigate ourselves for our failure.

If we fail publicly, our failure plainly visible to others, we may also fear other people’s judgment and that our failure may have wider social repercussions. We may fear that our failure will impact or end our career, or else that it will permanently damage our reputation and status.

While it is understandable that we fear failure, this fear can also hold us back. It may prevent us from seeking new experiences, venturing into the unknown, or taking risks of any kind. It may lead to us staying in situations that do not make us happy and that are not conducive to long-term growth.

Fear of failure can cause procrastination, avoidance, and stagnation. In the form of pessimistic beliefs about our efficacy, agency, and chances of succeeding at what is important to us, it can adversely impact our wellbeing.

Is fear of failure a phobia?

Extreme fear of failure is called atychiphobia, and it severely affects the ability of sufferers to function well in daily life (Collins Dictionary, n.d.).

While atychiphobia is not a recognized medical diagnosis, we can think of it as a sub-form of anxiety disorder. It may be manifested in extreme avoidant behavior and very maladaptive procrastination.

It can be completely paralyzing and lead to affected clients being unable to function at their jobs or at home. It can also cause panic attacks and excessive ruminative anticipation of situations that trigger this fear response.

While this truly debilitating fear of failure is quite rare, a less pronounced and more subtle fear of failure is much more common. However, even in its less extreme form, fear of failure can have seriously adverse effects on wellbeing.

In terms of behaviors, fear of failure can lead to:

• Procrastination

In terms of physical symptoms, a fear of failure can generate:

• An increased heart rate
• Faster, shallower breathing
• Muscle tension

Emotionally speaking, fear of failure may manifest as:

• Negative beliefs about our agency and efficacy
• Helplessness
• Hopelessness
• Low self-esteem
• Negative self-talk and negative affect, in particular shame and embarrassment

Download 3 Free Positive Psychology Exercises (PDF)

Enhance wellbeing with these free, science-based exercises that draw on the latest insights from positive psychology.

Download 3 Free Positive Psychology Tools Pack (PDF)

By filling out your name and email address below.

We may not always be fully aware of our fear of failure, even when we experience its common core symptoms. But we can become more aware of what might be behind our fear of failure: our underlying beliefs, orientations, and past experiences that may have made us more failure averse.

What causes fear of failure?

Perhaps unsurprisingly, psychologists have established that fear of failure is strongly correlated with perfectionism (Conroy et al., 2007).

Fear of failure is also related to specific self-beliefs, especially to our self-esteem being linked to achievement and success.

It is also shaped by experiences, upbringing, and wider social values. Essentially, fear of failure is a fear of judgment, often the perceived external judgment by others, but also inner judgment of value passed internally, which impacts self-image and self-esteem.

Atkinson (1957) described fear of failure as a desire to avoid failure in situations that matter to us because we fear the shame that is associated with it.

Conroy et al. (2002) explain fear of failure as a multidimensional construct. More specifically, it is a threat that we may experience when we seek to achieve personally meaningful goals. Failure is associated with aversive consequences.

Conroy et al. (2002) identified five core beliefs about the consequence of failure, all of which are associated with threat appraisal and fear.

They include:

• Fear of experiencing shame and embarrassment
• Fear of devaluing one’s self-estimate
• Fear of having an uncertain future
• Fear of important others losing interest
• Fear of upsetting important others

Fear of failure, perfectionism, and procrastination

Sagar and Stoeber (2009, p. 206) have shown that the “fear of experiencing shame and embarrassment is central in the relationship between perfectionism and fear of failure, and that perfectionistic concern about mistakes […] are aspects of perfectionism that predict fear of experiencing shame and embarrassment and negative affect after failure.” McGregor and Elliot (2005) have also established a link between shame and fear of failure.

Stoeber and Otto (2006) have shown that it is important to be more precise when we talk about perfectionism. They suggest we differentiate carefully between “perfectionistic strivings,” that is, our desire for excellence and care for high performance, which are often positive, and “perfectionistic concerns.”

Perfectionistic concerns are our evaluations of our performance, and these evaluations can have a negative impact on our self-esteem and future performance. It is evaluative perfectionist concerns that have negative associations and consequences, not our perfectionist striving as such. Perfectionist concerns are, for example, closely linked with fear of failure in athletes (Frost & Henderson, 1991; Stoeber & Becker, 2008).

Moreover, Conroy et al. (2007) have shown that socially prescribed perfectionism is particularly toxic for performance and wellbeing. Parental expectations and parental criticism, too, can play a significant role in fear of failure.

Finally, Abdi Zarrin et al. (2020) have found a strong correlation between students’ tendencies to procrastinate and their fear of failure. Procrastination can have a severely negative impact on academic achievement. Procrastination is both a consequence of and a symptom of fear of failure.

Fear of failure, motivation, and success

As Stoeber and Otto (2006) have shown, perfectionistic strivings can be highly motivating and lead to increased success, whereas perfectionist evaluations can lead to fear of failure and lack of taking action.

Fear of failure, in particular if we associate failure strongly with shame, embarrassment, negative self-image, judgment, and uncertainty about our future, can prevent us from taking action and risks. It can therefore stifle our motivation and severely impact our chances of succeeding in life.

Fear of failure and anxiety

As mentioned above, excessive and truly paralyzing fear of failure is known as atychiphobia and can be considered a subcategory of anxiety disorder, although it is not recognized as an official medical diagnosis.

Anxieties that are associated with fear of failure usually revolve around fear of punishment; judgment; adverse impact on our careers, status, and reputation; and fear of losing or disappointing important others (Conroy et al. 2002).

Crucially, it is their perceptions and interpretations that lead them to feel shame and embarrassment, not necessarily the objective quality of their performance as such. In other words, what counts as failure in their books may not be considered failure by other people.

Perfectionists often equate perfect performance with self-worth, whereas they see failure as a sign of being worthless (Tangney, 2002). This is obviously a highly problematic association. We may help clients who are prone to think like this to shift their focus from self-worth to self-acceptance and support them to develop more compassionate self-narratives that are not conditional on external success.

How, then, can the fear of failure be overcome? First, look at your mindset — your attitudes about failing. Reminding yourself that there is no growth without failure — no learning, no development, no new experiences — can help you see your aversion in a new light.

Cultivate what Carol Dweck (2017) has called a growth mindset , an openness to learning from failure in the service of overall development.

Second, start by gently building your failure muscle in a safe space. Try to learn a new skill or hobby — a sport, cooking, dancing, drawing, playing an instrument — and be kind to yourself in the learning process. Mindfully allow yourself to fail, to try again, to fail again but better, and try again, until you get somewhere.

Third, recall gritty successful people who failed a hundred, or maybe even a thousand times, before they got somewhere with their attempts. Thomas Edison, the inventor of the light bulb, for example, is famous for having said, “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.”

Fourth, watch how a toddler learns to walk. They do not study a “how to walk upright” manual. Instead, they learn by doing and, especially, by failing. They stand up, stumble, fall, stand up, stumble, fall, and stand up again, over and over again, until they learn to stand, then to walk, and then how to run.

Finally, simply start seeing your failures as teachers. Instead of indulging in self-recrimination and feeling sorry for yourself when you fail, ask yourself: What can I learn from this experience? What can I do better next time? What is the lesson here? And remember: While it is hard to fail, it is much worse never to have tried to succeed.

Excessive fear of failure at work can stifle experimentation, productivity, and creativity. It can impact your ability to find new pathways and venture into the unknown in search of new solutions to challenges. But attitudes to failure at work are a collective challenge.

To truly learn from failure at work, a culture change may be needed. Organizational cultures should support experimentation and be committed to continuous learning and growth. That includes looking at failure with openness and curiosity rather than punishing it.

The Japanese concept of “kaizen” — steady, incremental improvement — can be very helpful for implementing genuine learning cultures in organizations.

The good news is that fear of failure can be overcome. We can build our “failure muscle” gently and in safe spaces, alone or together.

1. Try something new

Learn a new skill as a group and have fun in the process. That might be ice skating, rock climbing, hip-hop dancing, a cooking class, or wood carving. When you mess up or fall on your back, try to laugh about it.

This will help you let go of unhelpful perfectionism and train your collective failure muscles. Give yourself permission to fail playfully.

2. Reflection sessions

Introduce regular failure-analysis sessions in your workplace. Learn to talk openly about what went wrong, but also what went well, and what you can learn from these experiences.

These sessions will help destigmatize failure in your organization and allow you to shift your mindset to one of learning. Follow the motto: “There is no failure, only feedback.”

3. Journal the lessons learned

Journal about your private failures. Keep a little diary in which you capture what your failures have taught you. Take seriously Samuel Beckett’s advice about “failing better.” How can you fail better next time?

It differentiates five aversive fears of failure:

The PFAI includes 25 items measuring beliefs associated with negative consequences of failure.

You can take the test online for free.

Here is another test, the Success Likelihood Test , to assess where you are on the fear of failure scale.

If you think your fear of failure is so severe that it might be atychiphobia, you might find the Failure Phobia test useful.

There are two classics about how to overcome fear of failure and work on your mindset, written by two acclaimed authors. In addition, we share a third book that advocates the destigmatization of failure.

1. Mindset: Changing the Way You Think to Fulfil Your Potential – Carol Dweck

We have a fixed mindset when we believe that our abilities, skills, and intelligence are fixed and cannot be changed. Conversely, we have a growth mindset when we believe we can develop and improve our abilities. We may grow and develop through hard work, perseverance, and of course by learning from our mistakes.

People with a growth mindset are much more likely to embrace challenges, persist through obstacles, and see failure as learning opportunities. Those with a fixed mindset, by contrast, may be more likely to give up when faced with challenges or setbacks and may see failure as a reflection of their own inherent limitations.

Find the book on Amazon .

2. Grit: Why Passion and Resilience are the Secrets to Success – Angela Duckworth

In this book, psychologist Angela Duckworth defines grit as the combination of passion and perseverance over time.

Grit, she argues, is a key predictor of success in any field. Crucially, it can be cultivated and developed through deliberate practice and effort — just like a growth mindset. Grit also entails learning from failure.

Duckworth suggests that having grit involves setting long-term goals and working toward them with sustained effort and resilience, even in the face of obstacles and setbacks.

She also emphasizes the importance of having a sense of purpose and passion for what we do, both of which are crucial for sustaining motivation and focus.

3. Black Box Thinking – Matthew Syed

Another outstanding book on learning from failure is Black Box Thinking , by journalist Matthew Syed.

Syed presents a compelling case for changing our collective attitudes to failure.

Advocating “black box thinking,” Syed invites us to cultivate a mindset that destigmatizes failure and instead seeks to harness its benefits.

If you’d like to find out more about this topic, you may find these articles on explanatory style, resilience, and overcoming perfectionism inspiring, too.

• What Are Attributional and Explanatory Styles in Psychology?
• How to Be Mentally Strong: 14 Ways to Build Mental Toughness
• How to Overcome Perfectionism: 15 Worksheets & Resources

You may also enjoy this deep dive into Carol Dweck’s highly influential book on growth mindsets. It includes some important tips on how you can cultivate a growth mindset and overcome a fixed mindset:

• Growth Mindset vs. Fixed + Key Takeaways From Dweck’s Book

Besides these great articles, the following worksheets can be used when helping your clients face their fears:

Graded Exposure Worksheet

Graded Exposure is a Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy technique that is designed to help people confront and overcome their fears, including fear of failing.

When we are fearful of something, we may avoid it. While this avoidance may help in reducing fear in the short term, over the long term it can make the fear even worse.

Graded exposure involves creating a safe environment in which clients can become “exposed” to the things they fear and avoid.

Facing Up to Your Fears

This exercise can be done with a partner. Together, you can reflect on your fears openly and support each other in the process.

Understand Your Fears

This exercise helps you understand your fears more deeply, by breaking your fear into different components. It can also be applied to the fear of failure.

Other free tools you would find helpful are included in our CBT tools pack . Why not download the tools, and try out the exercises within? Some examples include:

• Reframing Critical Self-Talk This exercise helps you to notice, spot, and then reframe your critical self-talk. In the context of fear of failure, you can use it to reframe your anxieties about not measuring up or failing at something.
• Strengths Spotting by Exception Finding This exercise helps you to spot your strengths so that you can draw on your strengths more consciously and deliberately in high-stakes situations in which you fear failure.
• Solution-Focused Guided Imagery This exercise helps you envisage solutions to your problems or to important challenges you are facing and that you fear you may fail at.

If you’re looking for more science-based ways to help others enhance their wellbeing, this signature collection contains 17 validated positive psychology tools for practitioners. Use them to help others flourish and thrive.

World’s Largest Positive Psychology Resource

The Positive Psychology Toolkit© is a groundbreaking practitioner resource containing over 500 science-based exercises , activities, interventions, questionnaires, and assessments created by experts using the latest positive psychology research.

Updated monthly. 100% Science-based.

“The best positive psychology resource out there!” — Emiliya Zhivotovskaya , Flourishing Center CEO

Both as individuals and as a culture, we have a lot to learn from failure. And this matters, for without failure, there would be no progress, learning, or growth.

Failure also taps into one of the ancient virtues: courage. If we don’t dare, we can’t win.

Trying something new and venturing outside of our comfort zone always entail the risk of failure. But if we live to avoid failure at all costs, our lives will be impoverished and diminished. While we may avoid the pain of failing publicly, we inflict another kind of pain on ourselves: that of languishing and stagnating. We shrink our field of play.

Remember that fear of failure is the number one killer of all grand plans, exciting ideas, and positive visions for the future.

If you have a plan to build a legacy, become a champion, start a business, or any other task big or small but are held back by your fears, we encourage you to step forward, face your fears, accept what you learn from the process, and flourish.

We hope you enjoyed reading this article. Don’t forget to download our three Positive Psychology Exercises for free .

• Abdi Zarrin, S., Gracia, E., & Paixão, M. P. (2020). Prediction of academic procrastination by fear of failure and self-regulation. Educational Sciences: Theory and Practice , 20 (3), 34–43.
• Atkinson, J. W. (1957). Motivational determinant of risk-taking behavior. Psychological Review , 64 , 359–372.
• Collins Dictionary. (n.d.). Atychiphobia. In Collins online dictionary . Retrieved May 3, 2023, from https://www.collinsdictionary.com/submission/19046/atychiphobia.
• Conroy, D. E., Kaye, M. P., & Fifer, A. M. (2007). Cognitive links between fear of failure and perfectionism. Journal of Rational-Emotive & Cognitive-Behavior Therapy , 25 (4), 237–253.
• Conroy, D. E., Willow, J. P., & Metzler, J. N. (2002). Multidimensional fear of failure measurement: The Performance Failure Appraisal Inventory. Journal of Applied Sport Psychology , 14 , 76–90.
• Dweck, C. S. (2017). Mindset: Changing the way you think to fulfil your potential (Updated ed.). Robinson.
• Frost, R. O., & Henderson, K. J. (1991). Perfectionism and reactions to athletic competition. Journal of Sport & Exercise Psychology , 13 , 323–335.
• McGregor, H. A., & Elliot, A. J. (2005). The shame of failure: Examining the link between fear of failure and shame. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin , 31 , 218–231.
• Sagar, S. S., & Stoeber, J. (2009). Perfectionism, fear of failure, and affective responses to success and failure: The central role of fear of experiencing shame and embarrassment. Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology , 31 , 602–627.
• Stoeber, J., & Becker, C. (2008). Perfectionism, achievement motives, and attribution of success and failure in female soccer players. International Journal of Psychology , 43 , 980–987.
• Stoeber, J., & Otto, K. (2006). Positive conceptions of perfectionism: Approaches, evidence, challenges. Personality and Social Psychology Review , 10 , 295–319.
• Tangney, J. P. (2002). Perfectionism and the self-conscious emotions: Shame, guilt, embarrassment and pride. In G. L. Flett, & P. L. Hewitt (Eds.), Perfectionism: Theory, research, and treatment (pp. 199–216). American Psychological Association.

Share this article:

Article feedback

What our readers think.

A great initial starting point for our students that are struggling with this personal efficiency. Mindset and growth mindset are the stronger indicators of personality traits that will allow individuals to develop positive results.

Let us know your thoughts Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published.

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

Related articles

How to Let Go & Why It’s So Important for Wellbeing

The art of letting go has ancient Asian roots. Particularly prominent in Daoism and Buddhism, letting go entails non-attachment—that is, freeing ourselves from our desires [...]

The Scientific Validity of Manifesting: How to Support Clients

“Manifesting” is a big trend in the self-help and success industry. Because so many people actively try to practice manifesting strategies, it is important for [...]

How Learned Hopefulness Can Change Your Client’s Life

Hope is something we cling to when uncertainty looms or things begin to go wrong – unclear results from a scan, a call saying our [...]

Read other articles by their category

• Body & Brain (50)
• Coaching & Application (58)
• Compassion (25)
• Counseling (51)
• Emotional Intelligence (23)
• Gratitude (18)
• Grief & Bereavement (21)
• Happiness & SWB (40)
• Meaning & Values (26)
• Meditation (20)
• Mindfulness (44)
• Motivation & Goals (45)
• Optimism & Mindset (34)
• Positive CBT (30)
• Positive Communication (22)
• Positive Education (47)
• Positive Emotions (32)
• Positive Leadership (19)
• Positive Parenting (16)
• Positive Psychology (34)
• Positive Workplace (37)
• Productivity (18)
• Relationships (44)
• Resilience & Coping (39)
• Self Awareness (21)
• Self Esteem (38)
• Strengths & Virtues (32)
• Stress & Burnout Prevention (34)
• Theory & Books (46)
• Therapy Exercises (37)
• Types of Therapy (64)

3 Positive Psychology Tools (PDF)

• Entertainment
• Environment
• Information Science and Technology
• Social Issues

Home Essay Samples Life

Essay Samples on Fear of Failure

The fear of failure can stem from various sources, such as high expectations from oneself or others, a fear of judgment or rejection, or a desire for perfection. It often manifests as a paralyzing emotion that hinders progress and stifles personal growth. Individuals who experience this fear may find themselves trapped in a cycle of self-doubt, unable to take risks or pursue their passions due to the fear of falling short.

Writing a College Essay about Fear of Failure

• Perosnal Experiences

A fear of failure college essay provides an opportunity to explore this universal experience and shed light on its impact. By examining personal anecdotes, you can convey the emotional depth and authenticity of your own journey with this fear. Share how it has shaped your decision-making, influenced your goals, or affected your self-esteem. By revealing vulnerability and honesty, you can create a relatable narrative that resonates with readers.

• Sources and Evidence

In addition to personal experiences, it is crucial to back your college essay about fear of failure with credible sources and evidence. These external sources lend credibility to your fear of failure essay and demonstrate a depth of research and understanding.

• Topics to Discuss

Furthermore, consider discussing the societal pressures and cultural factors that contribute to the fear of failure. By addressing these broader implications in fear of failure essay examples, you can paint a comprehensive picture of the fear of failure’s impact on individuals and society as a whole.

To make your essay impactful, emphasize the importance of resilience and learning from failure. Share inspiring stories of individuals who have overcome their fears and achieved remarkable success despite setbacks. By providing practical strategies and actionable steps, such as setting realistic goals, seeking support from mentors, or reframing failure as a stepping stone to success, you can empower readers to confront and overcome their own fear of failure.

Fear of Failure: The Development of Entrepreneurship in Brazil

The reason why Brazil was chosen for this research is because Brazil is one of the countries which is suspected to develop their economy on a large scale in the next few years. Therefore, their behaviour towards Entrepreneurship is deemed to change. In this report...

• Cost Accounting
• Fear of Failure
• Organizational Behavior

Overcoming the Fear Of Failure and Reaching Goals

Fear of failure is when we let that fear to stop us from achieving our goals and objectives, but is very important to learn how to overcome it. This kind of fear is most of the time irrational and continuous. People should find a way...

Academic Challenges and the Ways to Overcome Them

Introduction Students face a lot of stress through their academics, most of which is caused by too much pressure or lack of preparedness. Not all students who get accepted into universities graduate with the qualifications they sought to achieve. A study by Burns, (2006) found...

• Academic Challenges
• College Students

Dealing with the Fear of Failure

If failure does not lead to a new product, process, or discovery, it should lead to some type of learning. Leaders with developed character regarding failure have the poise to accept it without condemning themselves. Like a good football coach looking at the game films...

An Account of Fear of Failure: Fear of Driving 

As a young teen, one of our greatest moments growing up is learning how to drive. Driving is a rite of passage that signifies freedom through the ability of being able to maneuver a vehicle and get from one point to another. Learning to drive...

Stressed out with your paper?

Consider using writing assistance:

• 100% unique papers
• 3 hrs deadline option

The Value of Failure and Challenging the Fear of It

Failure is like a puzzle, you cannot see the bigger and beautiful picture until every piece is put in place. Puzzles are time-consuming and often leave one in a state of tedium as to where they believe their task of completing the puzzle cannot be...

The Need For Investigation Of The Fear Relation To Anxiety Disorders

Fear has been characterized as separate from Anxiety. Fear is “a basic emotion that is an adaptive response to threat marked by quick, automatic onset, brief duration, and sympathetic arousal” whereas Anxiety is a “future-focused cognitive association that connects basic emotions (such as fear) to...

• Anxiety Disorder

A Prerequisite to Growth: Why People Fear Change

Different situations have different effect on us. Changes are the reason for thrill in our lives, but many people fear CHANGE. No matter how small a change is, sometimes it is hard for people to accept. Change in a relation due to distance can be...

Best topics on Fear of Failure

1. Fear of Failure: The Development of Entrepreneurship in Brazil

2. Overcoming the Fear Of Failure and Reaching Goals

3. Academic Challenges and the Ways to Overcome Them

4. Dealing with the Fear of Failure

5. An Account of Fear of Failure: Fear of Driving 

6. The Value of Failure and Challenging the Fear of It

7. The Need For Investigation Of The Fear Relation To Anxiety Disorders

8. A Prerequisite to Growth: Why People Fear Change

• Perseverance
• Career Goals
• Personality
• Bucket List
• Coming of Age
• Benefits of Volunteering

Need writing help?

You can always rely on us no matter what type of paper you need

*No hidden charges

100% Unique Essays

Absolutely Confidential

Money Back Guarantee

By clicking “Send Essay”, you agree to our Terms of service and Privacy statement. We will occasionally send you account related emails

You can also get a UNIQUE essay on this or any other topic

Thank you! We’ll contact you as soon as possible.

What are your chances of acceptance?

Calculate for all schools, your chance of acceptance.

Your chancing factors

Extracurriculars.

How to Write the “Overcoming Challenges” Essay + Examples

What’s covered:.

• What is the Overcoming Challenges Essay?
• Real Overcoming Challenges Essay Prompts
• How to Choose a Topic
• Writing Tips

Overcoming Challenges Essay Examples

• Where to Get Your Essay Edited

While any college essay can be intimidating, the Overcoming Challenges prompt often worries students the most. Those students who’ve been lucky enough not to experience trauma tend to assume they have nothing worth saying. On the other hand, students who’ve overcome larger obstacles may be hesitant to talk about them.

Regardless of your particular circumstances, there are steps you can take to make the essay writing process simpler. Here are our top tips for writing the overcoming challenges essay successfully.

What is the “Overcoming Challenges” Essay?

The overcoming challenges prompt shows up frequently in both main application essays (like the Common App) and supplemental essays. Because supplemental essays allow students to provide schools with additional information, applicants should be sure that the subject matter they choose to write about differs from what’s in their main essay.

Students often assume the overcoming challenges essay requires them to detail past traumas. While you can certainly write about an experience that’s had a profound effect on your life, it’s important to remember that colleges aren’t evaluating students based on the seriousness of the obstacle they overcame.

On the contrary, the goal of this essay is to show admissions officers that you have the intelligence and fortitude to handle any challenges that come your way. After all, college serves as an introduction to adult life, and schools want to know that the students they admit are up to the task. 

Real “Overcoming Challenges” Essay Prompts

To help you understand what the “Overcoming Challenges” essay looks like, here are a couple sample prompts.

Currently, the Common Application asks students to answer the following prompt in 650 words or less:

“The lessons we take from obstacles we encounter can be fundamental to later success. Recount a time when you faced a challenge, setback, or failure. How did it affect you, and what did you learn from the experience?”

For the past several years, MIT has prompted students to write 200 to 250 words on the following:

“Tell us about the most significant challenge you’ve faced or something important that didn’t go according to plan. How did you manage the situation?”

In both cases, the prompts explicitly ask for your response to the challenge. The event itself isn’t as important as how it pushed you to grow.

How to Choose a Topic for an Essay on Overcoming Challenges

When it comes to finding the best topic for your overcoming challenges essays, there’s no right answer. The word “challenge” is ambiguous and could be used to reference a wide range of situations from prevailing over a bully to getting over your lifelong stage fright to appear in a school musical. Here are some suggestions to keep in mind when selecting an essay subject.

1. Avoid trivial or common topics

While there aren’t many hard-and-fast rules for choosing an essay topic, students should avoid overdone topics.

These include:

• Working hard in a challenging class
• Overcoming a sports injury
• Moving schools or immigrating to the US
• Tragedy (divorce, death, abuse)

Admissions officers have read numerous essays on the subject, so it’s harder for you to stand out (see our full list of cliché college essay topics to avoid ). If events like these were truly formative to you, you can still choose to write about them, but you’ll need to be as personal as possible. 

It’s also ideal if you have a less traditional storyline for a cliché topic; for example, if your sports injury led you to discover a new passion, that would be a more unique story than detailing how you overcame your injury and got back in the game.

Similarly, students may not want to write about an obstacle that admissions committees could perceive as low stakes, such as getting a B on a test, or getting into a small fight with a friend. The goal of this essay is to illustrate how you respond to adversity, so the topic you pick should’ve been at least impactful on your personal growth.

2. Pick challenges that demonstrate qualities you want to highlight

Students often mistakenly assume they need to have experienced exceptional circumstances like poverty, an abusive parent, or cancer to write a good essay. The truth is that the best topics will allow you to highlight specific personal qualities and share more about who you are. The essay should be less about the challenge itself, and more about how you responded to it.

Ask yourself what personality traits you want to emphasize, and see what’s missing in your application. Maybe you want to highlight your adaptability, for example, but that isn’t clearly expressed in your application. In this case, you might write about a challenge that put your adaptability to the test, or shaped you to become more adaptable.

Here are some examples of good topics we’ve seen over the years:

• Not having a coach for a sports team and becoming one yourself
• Helping a parent through a serious health issue
• Trying to get the school track dedicated to a coach
• Having to switch your Model UN position last-minute

Tips for Writing an Essay About Overcoming Challenges

Once you’ve selected a topic for your essays, it’s time to sit down and write. For best results, make sure your essay focuses on your efforts to tackle an obstacle rather than the problem itself. Additionally, you could avoid essay writing pitfalls by doing the following:

1. Choose an original essay structure

If you want your overcoming challenges essay to attract attention, aim to break away from more traditional structures. Most of these essays start by describing an unsuccessful attempt at a goal and then explain the steps the writer took to master the challenge. 

You can stand out by choosing a challenge you’re still working on overcoming, or focus on a mental or emotional challenge that spans multiple activities or events. For example, you might discuss your fear of public speaking and how that impacted your ability to coach your brother’s Little League team and run for Student Council. 

You can also choose a challenge that can be narrated in the moment, such as being put on the spot to teach a yoga class. These challenges can make particularly engaging essays, as you get to experience the writer’s thoughts and emotions as they unfold.

Keep in mind that you don’t necessarily need to have succeeded in your goal for this essay. Maybe you ran for an election and lost, or maybe you proposed a measure to the school board that wasn’t passed. It’s still possible to write a strong essay about topics like these as long as you focus on your personal growth. In fact, these may make for even stronger essays since they are more unconventional topics.

2. Focus on the internal

When writing about past experiences, you may be tempted to spend too much time describing specific people and events. With an Overcoming Challenges essay though, the goal is to focus on your thoughts and feelings.

For example, rather than detail all the steps you took to become a better public speaker, use the majority of your essay to describe your mental state as you embarked on the journey to achieving your goals. Were you excited, scared, anxious, or hopeful? Don’t be afraid to let the reader in on your innermost emotions and thoughts during this process.

3. Share what you learned 

An Overcoming Challenges essay should leave the reader with a clear understanding of what you learned on your journey, be it physical, mental, or emotional. There’s no need to explicitly say “this experience taught me X,” but your essay should at least implicitly share any lessons you learned. This can be done through your actions and in-the-moment reflections. Remember that the goal is to show admissions committees why your experiences make you a great candidate for admission. 

Was I no longer the beloved daughter of nature, whisperer of trees? Knee-high rubber boots, camouflage, bug spray—I wore the g arb and perfume of a proud wild woman, yet there I was, hunched over the pathetic pile of stubborn sticks, utterly stumped, on the verge of tears. As a child, I had considered myself a kind of rustic princess, a cradler of spiders and centipedes, who was serenaded by mourning doves and chickadees, who could glide through tick-infested meadows and emerge Lyme-free. I knew the cracks of the earth like the scars on my own rough palms. Yet here I was, ten years later, incapable of performing the most fundamental outdoor task: I could not, for the life of me, start a fire. 

Furiously I rubbed the twigs together—rubbed and rubbed until shreds of skin flaked from my fingers. No smoke. The twigs were too young, too sticky-green; I tossed them away with a shower of curses, and began tearing through the underbrush in search of a more flammable collection. My efforts were fruitless. Livid, I bit a rejected twig, determined to prove that the forest had spurned me, offering only young, wet bones that would never burn. But the wood cracked like carrots between my teeth—old, brittle, and bitter. Roaring and nursing my aching palms, I retreated to the tent, where I sulked and awaited the jeers of my family. 

Rattling their empty worm cans and reeking of fat fish, my brother and cousins swaggered into the campsite. Immediately, they noticed the minor stick massacre by the fire pit and called to me, their deep voices already sharp with contempt. 

“Where’s the fire, Princess Clara?” they taunted. “Having some trouble?” They prodded me with the ends of the chewed branches and, with a few effortless scrapes of wood on rock, sparked a red and roaring flame. My face burned long after I left the fire pit. The camp stank of salmon and shame. 

In the tent, I pondered my failure. Was I so dainty? Was I that incapable? I thought of my hands, how calloused and capable they had been, how tender and smooth they had become. It had been years since I’d kneaded mud between my fingers; instead of scaling a white pine, I’d practiced scales on my piano, my hands softening into those of a musician—fleshy and sensitive. And I’d gotten glasses, having grown horrifically nearsighted; long nights of dim lighting and thick books had done this. I couldn’t remember the last time I had lain down on a hill, barefaced, and seen the stars without having to squint. Crawling along the edge of the tent, a spider confirmed my transformation—he disgusted me, and I felt an overwhelming urge to squash him. 

Yet, I realized I hadn’t really changed—I had only shifted perspective. I still eagerly explored new worlds, but through poems and prose rather than pastures and puddles. I’d grown to prefer the boom of a bass over that of a bullfrog, learned to coax a different kind of fire from wood, having developed a burn for writing rhymes and scrawling hypotheses. 

That night, I stayed up late with my journal and wrote about the spider I had decided not to kill. I had tolerated him just barely, only shrieking when he jumped—it helped to watch him decorate the corners of the tent with his delicate webs, knowing that he couldn’t start fires, either. When the night grew cold and the embers died, my words still smoked—my hands burned from all that scrawling—and even when I fell asleep, the ideas kept sparking—I was on fire, always on fire.

This essay is an excellent example because the writer turns an everyday challenge—starting a fire—into an exploration of her identity. The writer was once “a kind of rustic princess, a cradler of spiders and centipedes,” but has since traded her love of the outdoors for a love of music, writing, and reading. 

The story begins in media res , or in the middle of the action, allowing readers to feel as if we’re there with the writer. One of the essay’s biggest strengths is its use of imagery. We can easily visualize the writer’s childhood and the present day. For instance, she states that she “rubbed and rubbed [the twigs] until shreds of skin flaked from my fingers.”

The writing has an extremely literary quality, particularly with its wordplay. The writer reappropriates words and meanings, and even appeals to the senses: “My face burned long after I left the fire pit. The camp stank of salmon and shame.” She later uses a parallelism to cleverly juxtapose her changed interests: “instead of scaling a white pine, I’d practiced scales on my piano.”

One of the essay’s main areas of improvement is its overemphasis on the “story” and lack of emphasis on the reflection. The second to last paragraph about changing perspective is crucial to the essay, as it ties the anecdote to larger lessons in the writer’s life. She states that she hasn’t changed, but has only shifted perspective. Yet, we don’t get a good sense of where this realization comes from and how it impacts her life going forward. 

The end of the essay offers a satisfying return to the fire imagery, and highlights the writer’s passion—the one thing that has remained constant in her life.

“Getting beat is one thing – it’s part of competing – but I want no part in losing.” Coach Rob Stark’s motto never fails to remind me of his encouragement on early-morning bus rides to track meets around the state. I’ve always appreciated the phrase, but an experience last June helped me understand its more profound, universal meaning.

Stark, as we affectionately call him, has coached track at my high school for 25 years. His care, dedication, and emphasis on developing good character has left an enduring impact on me and hundreds of other students. Not only did he help me discover my talent and love for running, but he also taught me the importance of commitment and discipline and to approach every endeavor with the passion and intensity that I bring to running. When I learned a neighboring high school had dedicated their track to a longtime coach, I felt that Stark deserved similar honors.

Our school district’s board of education indicated they would only dedicate our track to Stark if I could demonstrate that he was extraordinary. I took charge and mobilized my teammates to distribute petitions, reach out to alumni, and compile statistics on the many team and individual champions Stark had coached over the years. We received astounding support, collecting almost 3,000 signatures and pages of endorsements from across the community. With help from my teammates, I presented this evidence to the board.

They didn’t bite. 

Most members argued that dedicating the track was a low priority. Knowing that we had to act quickly to convince them of its importance, I called a team meeting where we drafted a rebuttal for the next board meeting. To my surprise, they chose me to deliver it. I was far from the best public speaker in the group, and I felt nervous about going before the unsympathetic board again. However, at that second meeting, I discovered that I enjoy articulating and arguing for something that I’m passionate about.

Public speaking resembles a cross country race. Walking to the starting line, you have to trust your training and quell your last minute doubts. When the gun fires, you can’t think too hard about anything; your performance has to be instinctual, natural, even relaxed. At the next board meeting, the podium was my starting line. As I walked up to it, familiar butterflies fluttered in my stomach. Instead of the track stretching out in front of me, I faced the vast audience of teachers, board members, and my teammates. I felt my adrenaline build, and reassured myself: I’ve put in the work, my argument is powerful and sound. As the board president told me to introduce myself, I heard, “runners set” in the back of my mind. She finished speaking, and Bang! The brief silence was the gunshot for me to begin. 

The next few minutes blurred together, but when the dust settled, I knew from the board members’ expressions and the audience’s thunderous approval that I had run quite a race. Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough; the board voted down our proposal. I was disappointed, but proud of myself, my team, and our collaboration off the track. We stood up for a cause we believed in, and I overcame my worries about being a leader. Although I discovered that changing the status quo through an elected body can be a painstakingly difficult process and requires perseverance, I learned that I enjoy the challenges this effort offers. Last month, one of the school board members joked that I had become a “regular” – I now often show up to meetings to advocate for a variety of causes, including better environmental practices in cafeterias and safer equipment for athletes.

Just as Stark taught me, I worked passionately to achieve my goal. I may have been beaten when I appealed to the board, but I certainly didn’t lose, and that would have made Stark proud.

While the writer didn’t succeed in getting the track dedicated to Coach Stark, their essay is certainly successful in showing their willingness to push themselves and take initiative.

The essay opens with a quote from Coach Stark that later comes full circle at the end of the essay. We learn about Stark’s impact and the motivation for trying to get the track dedicated to him.

One of the biggest areas of improvement in the intro, however, is how the essay tells us Stark’s impact rather than showing us: His care, dedication, and emphasis on developing good character has left an enduring impact on me and hundreds of other students. Not only did he help me discover my talent and love for running, but he also taught me the importance of commitment and discipline and to approach every endeavor with the passion and intensity that I bring to running.

The writer could’ve helped us feel a stronger emotional connection to Stark if they had included examples of Stark’s qualities, rather than explicitly stating them. For example, they could’ve written something like: Stark was the kind of person who would give you gas money if you told him your parents couldn’t afford to pick you up from practice. And he actually did that—several times. At track meets, alumni regularly would come talk to him and tell him how he’d changed their lives. Before Stark, I was ambivalent about running and was on the JV team, but his encouragement motivated me to run longer and harder and eventually make varsity. Because of him, I approach every endeavor with the passion and intensity that I bring to running.

The essay goes on to explain how the writer overcame their apprehension of public speaking, and likens the process of submitting an appeal to the school board to running a race. This metaphor makes the writing more engaging and allows us to feel the student’s emotions.

While the student didn’t ultimately succeed in getting the track dedicated, we learn about their resilience and initiative: I now often show up to meetings to advocate for a variety of causes, including better environmental practices in cafeterias and safer equipment for athletes.

Overall, this essay is well-done. It demonstrates growth despite failing to meet a goal, which is a unique essay structure. The running metaphor and full-circle intro/ending also elevate the writing in this essay.

Where to Get Your Overcoming Challenges Essay Edited

The Overcoming Challenges essay is one of the trickier supplemental prompts, so it’s important to get feedback on your drafts. That’s why we created our free Peer Essay Review tool , where you can get a free review of your essay from another student. You can also improve your own writing skills by reviewing other students’ essays. 

If you want a college admissions expert to review your essay, advisors on CollegeVine have helped students refine their writing and submit successful applications to top schools. Find the right advisor for you to improve your chances of getting into your dream school!

Related CollegeVine Blog Posts

Essay on Failure Is The Stepping Stone To Success

Students are often asked to write an essay on Failure Is The Stepping Stone To Success in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

Let’s take a look…

100 Words Essay on Failure Is The Stepping Stone To Success

Introduction.

Failure is often seen as a bad thing. But, if we change our view, we can see it as a stepping stone to success. It’s a chance to learn and grow.

Learning from Mistakes

Building character.

Failure also builds our character. It makes us strong and resilient. It shows us that we can face challenges and not give up.

Path to Success

So, failure is not the end. It’s the start of a journey to success. By learning and growing from our failures, we can reach our goals.

250 Words Essay on Failure Is The Stepping Stone To Success

In life, everyone aims to be successful. But the road to success is not always smooth. We often face hurdles and sometimes, we fail. Yet, it is crucial to understand that failure is not the end. Instead, it is a stepping stone to success.

When we make mistakes, we learn what not to do. This is important because it helps us avoid the same mistakes in the future. For example, if a student fails in a test, he will study harder next time to pass. This is how failure acts as a stepping stone to success.

The Role of Persistence

Being persistent is key to overcoming failure. When we fail, we should not give up. Instead, we should try again with more determination. The story of Thomas Edison, the inventor of the light bulb, is a great example. He failed thousands of times before he succeeded.

Turning Failure into Success

To turn failure into success, we need to have a positive mindset. We should view failure as an opportunity to learn and grow. By doing so, we can turn our failures into stepping stones towards success.

In conclusion, failure is not something to be feared. It is, in fact, a stepping stone to success. It teaches us valuable lessons, makes us persistent, and helps us grow. So, the next time you fail, remember that it’s not the end, but the beginning of a journey towards success.

500 Words Essay on Failure Is The Stepping Stone To Success

Understanding failure.

Failure is when we are unable to achieve our goals or meet our expectations. It is a part of life that everyone experiences at one point or another. It can be in school, at home, or in our daily activities. Failure can make us feel sad and disappointed. But we should not let these feelings stop us from trying again.

Learning from Failure

Each failure teaches us something. It shows us what doesn’t work and encourages us to find a different way to reach our goals. For example, imagine you are trying to ride a bicycle for the first time. You may fall down many times. But each fall teaches you something new. You learn how to balance, how to pedal, and how to steer. Eventually, you learn to ride the bicycle. In this case, each fall or failure was a stepping stone to your success.

Failure and Success

Failure and success are two sides of the same coin. To reach success, we must face and overcome our failures. Many famous people have faced big failures before they found success. Thomas Edison, a famous inventor, failed thousands of times before he invented the light bulb. He once said, “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” This shows that he saw each failure as a step closer to success.

Building Resilience

In conclusion, failure is not something to be afraid of. It is a stepping stone to success. Each failure is a lesson that brings us closer to our goals. So, the next time you fail, do not be disheartened. Remember, it is just a stepping stone on your path to success. Embrace it, learn from it, and move forward with more determination. Success is waiting for you at the end of your journey.

If you’re looking for more, here are essays on other interesting topics:

Apart from these, you can look at all the essays by clicking here .

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

• Share full article

How Can I Silence My Fear of Failure When Starting to Write?

“You are likely your own cruelest reader,” says one of our advice columnists.

Rembrandt’s “Portrait of a Scholar” (1631) at the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia. Credit...

Supported by

By Ligaya Mishan

• Oct. 23, 2019

In T’s advice column Culture Therapist , either Ligaya Mishan or Megan O’Grady solves your problems using art. Have a question? Need some comfort? Email us at [email protected] .

Q: How do you silence your fear of failure when you start writing something you love very much? — Name Withheld

A: I think the first question is, for you, what is failure? Is it measured by the projected response of a future audience — puzzlement, recoil, sheer indifference — or by the distance between what you envision and what ends up on the page? You are likely your own cruelest reader. (I know I am.) And certainly there are times in the writing process when a cool gimlet eye is required to save us from our worst instincts, but not before you’ve had a chance to start.

The beginning is the worst: the confrontation with blankness, then the awful narrowing of possibilities the moment the words foam up and shrivel. In Ted Chiang’s parable-like short story “The Truth of Fact, the Truth of Feeling,” from his new collection, “ Exhalation ,” a teenager in a preliterate West African village is taught to read and write by a European missionary but finds it impossible to capture the performance of the village’s best storyteller in the new medium:

When Kokwa told the story, he didn’t merely use words; he used the sound of his voice, the movement of his hands, the light in his eyes. He told you the story with his whole body, and you understood it the same way. None of that was captured on paper; only the bare words could be written down. And reading just the words gave you only a hint of the experience of listening to Kokwa himself, as if one were licking the pot in which okra had been cooked instead of eating the okra itself.

In a sense, all literature is literature in translation, inchoate thoughts and feelings shoehorned into awkward-fitting nouns and verbs. It’s somehow comforting to know that before I even start, I’ve already failed! So now I can just get on with it.

We are having trouble retrieving the article content.

Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.

Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and  log into  your Times account, or  subscribe  for all of The Times.

Thank you for your patience while we verify access.

Already a subscriber?  Log in .

Want all of The Times?  Subscribe .

Advertisement

How Students Can Overcome Their Fear Of Failure

• by Celes     |    
• Filed in School & Studies

This is a guest post by Daniel Wong of Daniel-Wong.com .

“Put your notes away. It’s time to take the test,” says your teacher.

You feel paralyzed by fear.

Your stomach tightens.

Your palms get sweaty.

As your teacher places the test paper on your table, your mind goes blank.

Sound familiar?

Through my work , I’ve had the privilege of interacting with thousands of students.

Many students tell me that the words “test” and “exam” strike terror in their hearts. They say things like:

• “I can’t afford to do badly on this test!”
• “I’ll cry if I fail.”
• “I’ll be so disappointed if I don’t get an ‘A’.”

It’s important to assess students’ learning, but surely tests and exams shouldn’t elicit so many negative feelings?

Education today isn’t characterized by a sense of discovery and exploration. Neither is it characterized by a spirit of curiosity.

Why is education scary?

Instead, it’s characterized by fear.

Fear of losing out. Fear of exams. Fear of disappointment. Fear of failure.

This is understandable. After all, we live in a society that places a heavy emphasis on performance and achievement, so parents have high expectations of their children.

But teachers have a role to play too.

“The fear of failure begins in the teacher”

Please don’t get me wrong; I greatly admire the work that teachers do.

My friends who are teachers are some of the most generous, kind and conscientious people I know.

Personally, I don’t have what it takes to do a teacher’s job.

To all of you teachers out there who are reading this: Keep up your excellent work!

Some months ago, a good friend of mine who’s a high school teacher wrote a message to me:

“…   the fear of failure begins in the teacher .   That’s the root of the issue in our education system. One of the indicators to measure a teacher’s performance is the student’s grades.

More often than not,   the teacher is blinded to the student’s fear of failure because it is more daunting to come to terms with the fact that the fear stems from us [teachers].

When we deny our own condition, we fail to see what is happening in the student because it reminds us of who we really are. “

Powerfully written.

Teaching is a noble calling, but—based on my friend’s observations—teachers do have a significant part to play in causing students to fear failure.

Is your life meaningless if you don’t have a university degree?

I recently spoke to a teacher (I’ll call him Michael) who spent several years teaching at a high school where the students weren’t academically inclined.

In relating his experience to me, Michael remarked,  “Most of my students never made it to university. Their lives will never amount to much.”

Their lives will never amount to much.

It bothered me that those words came out of Michael’s mouth so naturally, so effortlessly, so smoothly.

Michael spoke as if he was proclaiming a gospel truth: If you’re not a university graduate, your life will never amount to much.

I don’t believe this to be true at all.

Each of us is running a race, but the goal shouldn’t be to finish first. Rather, the goal should be to finish well, to lead a meaningful life that you can be proud of and to make a difference in the lives of others.

I wonder how many teachers share Michael’s sentiments?

I’m concerned that the teachers who do might just give up on their students who don’t demonstrate an aptitude for academic subjects, even though these same students might be gifted in other areas like art, athletics, music or dance.

Fish aren’t good at climbing trees

Teachers who believe that education is mainly about accumulating certificates, diplomas and degrees are going to instill in their students a fear of tests and exams.

Eventually, their students will fear learning, because learning has become so closely linked to those terrifying exams.

Albert Einstein once remarked:  “Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.”

Truly, all of us are worth so much more than the educational qualifications that we write down on our résumé.

Overcoming the fear of failure: Progressing through the 3 stages

In order to overcome our fear of failure, we first need to realize that there are three stages in the journey: Approval, Acceptance and Adventure.

It should be our goal to make it through to Stage 3 and to remain there.

Below are descriptions of each stage, and what you’ll need to do to continually progress.

Stage 1: Approval

At this stage, students seek the approval of their parents and teachers.

Students try to do well in school primarily to make other people happy. They’re afraid of doing badly because they worry about disappointing their parents and teachers.

For most of my life as a student, I was at Stage 1. I didn’t see any meaning in education, but I enjoyed winning academic awards and honors. I studied hard just to try and wow others with my achievements.

I now see how unhealthy this approach towards education was!

I made it from Stage 1 to Stage 2 only when I realized that I wasn’t defined by my grades and achievements. I was a whole human being, so my role as a student was merely one of many roles I had.

If you’re at Stage 1, ask yourself why it’s important to you that you gain the approval of others.

Do you have insecurities you need to deal with?

What’s the root cause of those insecurities?

Do you have any unhealthy thought patterns?

Are you committed to changing those thought patterns?

Who can you talk to about these issues?

As writer Anna Quindlen said, “If your success is not on your own terms, if it looks good to the world but does not feel good in your heart, it is not success at all.”

When you move from Stage 1 to Stage 2, you’ll experience the freedom of taking full responsibility for your life, instead of trying to live up to other people’s expectations.

Stage 2: Acceptance

Stage 2 is where students begin to accept themselves fully—their strengths, talents, shortcomings and inadequacies. They become more purpose-driven in their pursuits, and aren’t so fixated on their performance.

To continue to make progress towards overcoming your fear of failure, declare to yourself daily that—even though your academics are important—your identity isn’t based on how many accomplishments you rack up.

Instead, your identity is found in who you’re becoming as a person, and in the decisions you make.

At Stage 2, it’s crucial that you surround yourself with encouraging people. Don’t hesitate to ask your family and people close to you to support you.

I also encourage you to develop your own personal definition of success, and write it down. Refer to it daily and ask yourself how you can lead a life of both success and significance.

Stage 3: Adventure

When students begin to see education as an adventure of discovery, they become intrinsically motivated. They work hard to be the best they can be, instead of trying to be better than their peers.

At Stage 3, students see failure not as something to be feared, but rather as something to be embraced. They understand that failure is an integral part of the success journey.

Given that we live in a stressful, competitive society, it’s easy to regress from Stage 3 to Stage 2, or even Stage 1.

Thus, when you reach Stage 3, it becomes even more important to surround yourself with like-minded people.

Stage 3 is about becoming a lifelong learner.

Set a rule for yourself of learning at least one new fact a day or reading one book a month. You could make it a habit to try out a new hobby every three months, or watch one educational TV program a week (no, MTV doesn’t count).

Get creative and don’t confine yourself to learning only things that are “in the syllabus.”

When you do these things, school will become more fun and interesting too, because you’ll see more clearly the beauty of this amazing world we live in.

In closing…

The fear of failure is something we all struggle with. It’s a battle that begins at a young age, and it’s one that will probably last a lifetime.

But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t equip ourselves with the skills and mindset necessary to fight a winning battle.

Let’s feel the fear but face it bravely anyway.

Whenever we talk about education, let’s not forget that students’ well-being is at stake. Lives are at stake. The future of our country and our world is at stake.

So let’s get to work on this thrilling journey of conquering our fear of failure.

If not now, then when?

(Image: amboo who? )

About the Author : Daniel Wong is the author of “The Happy Student: 5 Steps to Academic Fulfillment and Success.” He writes about education and career at www.daniel-wong.com .

Hi, I’m Celes. Thanks for reading. Personal Excellence is where I write about how to live our best life as we tackle life’s challenges. About Me »

• How To Deal With Disillusionment
• How To Deal With Uncertainty
• How To Overcome Anger
• How To Say No To Others
• How To Tackle Naysayers
• How To Stop Analysis Paralysis
• How To Deal With Critical People
• How To Handle Negative Criticism
• How To Give Constructive Criticism
• How To Deal With Unsupportive Friends & Family
• How To Improve Your Relationship With Your Parents
• How To Find Your Life Purpose
• How To Find Purpose After a Hard Fall in Life
• How To Move On From a Heartbreak
• How To Find Your Soulmate
• How To Stop Procrastinating
• How To Make Life’s Hardest Decisions
• How To Stay Focused & Not Get Distracted
• 101 Ways To Live Your Best Life
• 101 Ways To Be a Better Person
• 101 Things To Do Before You Die
• 101 Questions To Ask Yourself

25 Useful Brainstorming Techniques

Procrastinating on Studying? 5 Ready Tips to Overcome Procrastination

How To Increase Your Learning Multifold

5 Easy Ways To Improve Your Exam Performance

How To Get On the Dean’s List: 6 Benefits of Being on the Dean’s List

How To Get On the Dean’s List: Tips #1-6

Copyright 2024 © Personal Excellence  |   Terms of Use   |   Privacy

Practical tips to tackle life’s challenges. Join my email list.

Students’ Fear of Failure

This essay will explore the phenomenon of students’ fear of failure, discussing its causes, effects on academic performance, and strategies to overcome it. On PapersOwl, there’s also a selection of free essay templates associated with Anxiety Disorder.

How it works

I am a first-year student here at the University of Toledo. It is important that I address an extremely common concern that many first-year students encounter, specifically in their first semester, and that is the overwhelming fear of failure. For the majority of incoming freshmen there is always the feeling of expectations, not knowing what to do or how to exactly prepare for things like curriculum. There’s a huge difference between the last thirteen years of the average K-12 school day, then taking a leap into a pond full of big fish.

For many incoming freshman, the adjustment to attending college can entail a whirlwind of emotions, often resulting in the fear of failure. This is such a common overlying feeling, yet it often goes unnoticed by a number of people.

The first year attending college is bound to come along with many highs and lows. There are so many strings attached and factors contributed when looking at the overall phrase that is “fear of failure.” Throughout this letter I plan to inform you, of the great number of freshman students who suffer from fear of failure, both mentally and emotionally. Being a part of the success coach family at UT, it goes without saying how important a person of influence is, like yourself. Guiding students toward success is within your job title. My end goal is to inform you as the audience, of the generalization that is fear of failure in any given college setting. Any information given that wasn’t previously known, can go the extra mile in providing help to first-years that need the assistance.

Atychiphobia or the fear of failure, is the fear to stop any one person from doing the things that can move us forward to achieve our goals. Atychiphobia is a phobia, the severity of which comes along a wide spectrum, from mental instability to physical symptoms. Anything from feeling powerless and experiencing intense anxiety, to difficulty breathing and chest pain. There are a range of symptoms that prohibit certain cases from properly handling stressful situations in the correct manner. The fear of failure is one of many phobias not properly addressed to the public eye, resulting in improper steps to overcome such (Marcin, para 2).

There are numerous proposed questions regarding this topic. One that stands out among the many, is the correlation fear has with specific groups. This opens the table to a variety of people, taking into account their race, gender, religion, or even financial status. Test anxiety is a big contributing factor to performance in students. There was a study that took place at a University in Pakistan, conducting 126 undergraduate level students, testing their performance on an assessment that was given. Of these students, two thirds were male, the results concluded about 45% of the male students had high test anxiety. The remaining number that is female, showing much lower on the spectrum, resulting in overall better performance compared to the opposing gender. From the eight departments that were used in the experiment, some of them including computer sciences, psychology and statistics, half showed that the males were more prone to higher test anxiety (Ahmad, 297). Nasir Ahmad stated “Test anxiety results into high level of worry, fear and academic failure in competent as well as low-performing students” (Ahmad, 295). Many students coming from lower socioeconomic backgrounds, as well as minority groups who do suffer from test anxiety, many times result in failing or withdraw from that course (295, para 3). With this, opens the door for many more questions related to fear of failure.

With all the listed factors contributing to fear of failure, comes the logic behind this exact phrase. What does it mean to be so afraid of something that you are unable to complete that exact venture? For some it looks pointless and in some cases almost impossible to achieve what you had your mind set on at one point in time. The fear of failure goes so much further than test anxiety or categorization within a certain group. This itself does not stand alone, but also entails subcategories including, fear of change and fear of success. In these cases it is on the complete opposite end of the spectrum, yet the same path to unavoidable self sabotage. The fear of success, often referred to as its interchangeable name “imposter syndrome” (health line) affects people of all levels. This is the fear of not reaching your full potential, due to heavy doubt in oneself. Many times, these people surround themselves with others who think the same. It has been shown that of the people who overcome the fear of success, relate it to the unrealistic notion of what it means to be competent throughout their college career and future endeavors.

With fear of failure and fear of success, comes one that underlies both, that is fear of change. Overthinking is a characteristic humans share around the world. It is this very thing that causes people to never step foot outside their comfort zone, not having the inter-ability to pursue a task or job. This causes people to create a new comfort zone that was built around the already small chain of new experiences. Does fear of failure directly relate to current social standings, or previous home life as well? There was a recent study done in the United Kingdom through the department of Psychology displaying the possible relation to parent-child fear of failure. The data showed that it is fact possible for the fear to be passed down by generations. Parents that have had experience with fear of failure (FF), unknowingly passed it down to their children. Often times through the use of love withdraw in socialization (Sagar 178, para 2). Parental love withdraw can occur in response to the child’s failure. For many who suffer from extreme FF, a mistake or oversight does not get viewed upon as a learning experience, rather a long road ending with shame and embarrassment.

This also raises the question of the correlation amongst ethnicity and academic achievements or fear of failure. Race has always been a recurring question when referring to students ability to succeed. While there is no one straightforward answer to this proposal, there is research to further our knowledge on the topic. There are two main groups to be discussed and that is average white student, compared to great number of different races that make up a university population. African American, Middle Eastern, Hispanic or Asian, the list is endless when looking at the different cultural backgrounds that complete a college. The question stands, does the race or ethnicity affect the fear of failure each student experiences their first semester? The answer to which is much more complicated response, then just a simples yes or no. Research has shown the academic success of multiple ethnicities while completing college course work. Statistics show that students of different races are more prone to overall fear of failure. The 2013 total college enrollment rate for White 18- to 24-year-olds (42 percent) was higher than the rates for their Black and Hispanic peers (34 percent each). The White-Hispanic gap in the total college enrollment rate narrowed between 2003 and 2013 from 18 to 8 percent. However, indicator stated that the White-Black gap in the total college enrollment rate did not change measurably during this period. (national center 5).

Fear of failure is so much more than a feeling that will soon pass. It is more than your peers telling you to stop having anxiety about that one test, or that one assignment that’s due at midnight, you have yet to begin. This is a phobia so many students across the world experience on a daily basis, specifically first year college students. It’s not to say that one day the fear of failure will be greatly decayed in the student population, but for now there are so many steps one can take to help anyone who is experiencing this common fear. Through the survey I conducted, I proposed the question of how the University of Toledo could help minimize this fear. 50% stated that making tutoring a higher obligation would be most beneficial. This would give students the atmosphere with others facing the same problems, while getting the extra help they need in advance to offer counseling for those who often struggle academically, is a small step that can go a long way. This allows the student (first-years or progressed) to open up about how and why they are feeling this way. Some may not be able to identify why they are constantly in the realm of fear.

Speaking with someone who has either experienced similar fears or a professional who is able to give advice to help further their education without the constant worry of “what comes next” or “how am I going to complete this task?” is a huge asset. Meeting in small groups with people who share this phobia is an added factor, contributing to solutions that are needed when talking about this topic. From first-years to graduate level students, a conversation with someone who is or has experienced similar problems regarding fear of failure could be extremely valuable, when trying to cope.

The importance of addressing fear of failure was not only to inform you of a topic you may or may not already have knowledge of. In hopes, this letters’ goal was to bring to light how much impact this has on the vast student population. Ranging from first year to graduate level, this phobia affects a wide spectrum of students. There are an abundance of ways in which the university could lend a helping hand to someone facing this phobia, starting with awareness. From the outside this can be viewed as somewhat minuscule, but with the right team of people, this can be the extra helping hand so many students have been longing for without knowing.

Cite this page

Students' Fear of Failure. (2021, Mar 24). Retrieved from https://papersowl.com/examples/students-fear-of-failure/

"Students' Fear of Failure." PapersOwl.com , 24 Mar 2021, https://papersowl.com/examples/students-fear-of-failure/

PapersOwl.com. (2021). Students' Fear of Failure . [Online]. Available at: https://papersowl.com/examples/students-fear-of-failure/ [Accessed: 9 Jun. 2024]

"Students' Fear of Failure." PapersOwl.com, Mar 24, 2021. Accessed June 9, 2024. https://papersowl.com/examples/students-fear-of-failure/

"Students' Fear of Failure," PapersOwl.com , 24-Mar-2021. [Online]. Available: https://papersowl.com/examples/students-fear-of-failure/. [Accessed: 9-Jun-2024]

PapersOwl.com. (2021). Students' Fear of Failure . [Online]. Available at: https://papersowl.com/examples/students-fear-of-failure/ [Accessed: 9-Jun-2024]

Don't let plagiarism ruin your grade

Hire a writer to get a unique paper crafted to your needs.

Our writers will help you fix any mistakes and get an A+!

Please check your inbox.

You can order an original essay written according to your instructions.

Trusted by over 1 million students worldwide

1. Tell Us Your Requirements

2. Pick your perfect writer

3. Get Your Paper and Pay

Hi! I'm Amy, your personal assistant!

Don't know where to start? Give me your paper requirements and I connect you to an academic expert.

short deadlines

100% Plagiarism-Free

Certified writers

Fear of Criticism and Failure

By a Graduate Student

Once upon a time, I had to defend the “prospectus” or plan for my dissertation to my committee members. I spent many months researching, drafting, and revising my prospectus. I focused on making my ideas clear. I memorized the main points of my argument. When my prospectus defense began, I shared with excitement everything I had learned and planned to do. And the first question a committee member asked me in response was: “So… what’s your dissertation about?”

My stomach sank. For the next ninety minutes, I had to endure severe comment after severe comment on how undeveloped and—to my ears—stupid my ideas were. It did not feel like they were just objectively addressing my “writing.” It felt like they were personally addressing me (as a writer).

Receiving such harsh criticism not only made me feel like a failure, it also made me afraid to write later on in fear of receiving more harsh criticism and failing again . How did I deal with (and continue to deal with) the sometimes hurtful realities of academic writing? Not by making my research and writing any less personal to me but by keeping in mind a few mottos that have greatly informed my approach to academia, in general, and academic writing, in particular :

1. “Wisdom lies in taking everything with good humor and a grain of salt.” — George Santayana

After my prospectus defense, I did not want to look at or even think about anything I had written. I put my dissertation completely out of my mind for a few days—which was the most helpful and useful action I could have taken. When I eventually returned to my dissertation, I discovered that I could think about all the criticism I had received more rationally and less emotionally . I had a clear-eyed perspective on my committee members’ comments about the shortcomings in my work. I recognized that my committee members were experts on the subjects that I wanted to study and could see some of the faults in my ideas that they were bringing to light. And even if there were certain comments that I still did not agree with, I could accept that—for the most part—their criticisms about my ideas were based upon their own past experiences as early-career scholars who received (possibly harsh) criticism from their committee members.

And more than being able to develop a strategy for revising my dissertation, I could look back at my prospectus meeting with a sense of irony. Yes, my research is meaningful to me. Yes, my writing is deeply personal to me. But the idea of a group of people huddled together in a small room discussing the intricacies of academic scholarship was nothing if not humorous to me. I learned that even though sticks and stones and words could definitely hurt me, I could now look back at that (painful) memory with a smirk instead of a frown. I could think about the criticism I received with good humor and a grain of salt.

2. “Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art…It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things which give value to survival.” — C. S. Lewis

I have found as a graduate student that the difference between a “friend” and a “colleague” can make the difference between succumbing to or surviving the sometimes brutal realities of academia and academic writing. Simply having a friend in my program who I could talk with about the difficulties I faced in my prospectus defense—and any other aspects of our graduate degree program—was more valuable to me than hypothetically receiving advice and guidance from the most prestigious scholar imaginable. When I talk to people in my program who I consider to be both colleagues and friends, we discuss more than just our ideas and writing. We also share with each other about the personal realities of being a graduate student! Whether talking in-person at a coffee shop or texting late at night while editing a dissertation chapter, the conversations I’ve had with fellow travelers in my program have been invaluable to my survival as a graduate student.

3. “It is easy for us to lose ourselves in details in endeavoring to grasp and comprehend the real condition of a mass of human beings. We often forget that each unit in the mass is a throbbing human soul.” — W. E. B. Du Bois

From my many different experiences as an undergraduate student, high school teacher, graduate student, and graduate instructor, here’s the most important lesson I’ve learned: the well-being of myself and my students come before any academic assignment, project, or degree. I want to succeed as a graduate student—for more than just the prospect of a good job or financial security. I want to succeed in my graduate program because I believe in the ideas that I research and write about. But I’ve learned that simple decisions such as taking off a weekend in order to spend time with family and friends are key for me to maintain a healthy mental and emotional state. I no longer think that spending a Saturday away from my books and laptop makes me a “bad” student. For even if the world of academia still contains for me infinite possibilities for exploring who we are and how our society came to be, I believe first and foremost that I am a human soul whose worth could never be measured by any dissertation or degree.

This blog showcases the perspectives of UNC Chapel Hill community members learning and writing online. If you want to talk to a Writing and Learning Center coach about implementing strategies described in the blog, make an appointment with a writing coach or an academic coach today. Have an idea for a blog post about how you are learning and writing remotely? Contact us here .

8 Bold Ways to Overcome Your Fear of Writing

by Sarah Gribble | 0 comments

Today I want to talk about fear. Fear of writing, fear of sharing your work, fear of publishing—and how you can overcome it.

Writers face fear on a day-to-day basis.

The self-doubt . The fear of failure. And, oh, the vulnerability.

Writing is hard enough with all the self-evaluation and doubt about your abilities. But then sharing your work with other people so they can critique or review it? CRINGE.

When you sink into that fear it debilitates you. If you let fear hold you back, you’re ensuring you never achieve your goals. You’ll never write that book and you’ll never get published. All because you were too scared.

8 Ways to Overcome Your Fear of Writing

It’s time to stop letting fear control you and get writing. Here’s how:

1. Do what scares you.

When you’re up against something that makes you cringe, ask yourself what the worst-case scenario is. Is it actually  harmful? Unless it’s something like jumping from a bridge into a rocky river or stepping in front of a speeding vehicle, it’s probably not.

Fear is trying to keep you safe. It needs to learn that just because something is scary doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s detrimental to your health. Do what scares you, and keep doing it, and the fear will subside.

This includes fear of our own writing. I'm not saying you have to go write a 90,000 word novel. Start with a short story, or try out some writing prompts.

Aspiring writers might feel intiimdated because they don't think that they are a great writer. The reality is, you can never become a great writer unless you practice—and to practice, you have to write.

Embrace and overcome your fear by putting words down. Start writing, have patience with yourself, and worry about the rest later.

The blank page becomes way less scary as soon as you put words on it.

2. Stop procrastinating.

Your house is already clean enough. That TV show can wait. No, you don’t need to run to the store to pick up a bag of chips.

Figure out when the best time for you to write is and then write.

If you really, truly need a break to clear your mind, set a time limit. Ten minutes of scrubbing the grout with a toothbrush and then get back to your writing.

Ultimately, those who procrastinate will be more prone to writing off procrastination as writer's block—and the more time you spend away from writing, the scary it will become.

3. Learn from criticism.

Criticism is what everyone fears. Not just in writing, but in life. We all want to be liked, to be perfect, to be praised.

Your writing will not please everyone and that’s something you should realize and accept now. Criticism is much easier to take when you go into it knowing that fact.

Don’t just ignore criticism, though. Writing is like everything else in that it requires practice. You don't have to rank #1 on Amazon or make a bestseller list your first go (even though I won't argue that would be fantastic).

The first meal you cooked wasn’t a gourmet meal. The first time you dribbled a basketball wasn’t Lebron-level. Someone was there to point out what you were doing wrong and set you on the right path. They taught you how to get better.

That’s what criticism is: teaching.

It's not  rejecting your work, which might be why some writers fail to share their work: because their fear of rejection is mistakenly associated with getting critiques.

Yes, sometimes it’s mean-spirited, especially in this age of internet trolls. But even in those nasty reviews, there’s normally something to learn from.

Find it. Use it. And do better next time.

4. Stop revising.

You want every sentence in your work to be perfect . I have a secret for you: you’ll never get there.

Your writing will never be perfect. 

Not to you, not to your editors, and not to your readers. It’s impossible, so stop revising ad nauseam. At some point, you have to let it go and put the work out there.

Perfectionism can stunt your creative writing instead of empower it.

To avoid this, set a limit. I prefer three drafts. That’s it. Three and then I let it fly on its own.

What are you writing for? We'll never know unless you decide to share your work.

5. Set goals and move toward them.

Focus on milestones like daily word counts and deadlines (self-imposed or otherwise).

Writing a book is like summiting a mountain: you do it  one step at a time . When you reach the top you might be a little exhausted and out of breath, but you’ll look back at all you’ve accomplished and feel proud.

Without these smaller milestones, it might be hard to finish your piece of writing, or even find the motivation to keep writing each day.

Stories are finished one day at a time, with hard work and a desire to grow your writing process.

Don't sweat the small stuff in your first drafts, like word choice. Instead, set a long term goal of continually learning how to write better and smaller milestones that will help you finish stories you start.

All of this is accomplished word by word, and by turning real and irrational fears into manageable tasks.

6. Embrace the fear of writing.

You’re going to be scared frequently in this business. My stomach still flips every time I submit a short story , even though I’ve submitted hundreds of times. It’s going to happen.

The trick is to acknowledge it and move forward. It didn’t kill you.

In fact, that little tingle of fear should be your signal to celebrate. You did what scared you and that’s amazing.

One book that a lot of writers really love on this subject is The War of Art  by Steven Pressfield. If you're feeling discouraged or swallowed by your fear, check out this book for some motivation.

Even better, find and join a writing group like we have here at The Write Practice. Nothing helps you overcome your fears like a supportive community with a kindred creative spirit.

7. If your character can do it, so can you.

You don’t let your characters sit back on their heels because they’re scared, do you? I hope not, because if you do, you don’t have a story .

Your characters don’t have the luxury of sitting on the bench. They must make decisions and do something about the problem. And so should you.

Don’t let fear of writing take over your writing life. Decide to move forward, to write that book, to send out that manuscript. Decide and then do it.

8. Ask for help if you need it.

Don’t be afraid to ask for time to yourself so that you can write. Your family and friends will understand you need that time because writing is important to you.

Find a group of writers and readers that can go through your story and give constructive feedback. You can't improve in a vacuum.

Need to know what a day in the life of a flight attendant looks like, or the lingo of a truck driver? Ask them. Trust me, you’re not bothering them. People love talking about themselves.

In the same vein, if you need help with research, that’s literally what librarians are for. They’ll be glad to help.

Don’t let fear of asking for help stagnate your writing.

Embrace the Fear

I want to leave you with these words from Carrie Fisher:

Your fears are natural and normal. They're also not the end of the story.

Your task, the challenge for every writer, is to face that fear of writing, acknowledge it, and write, share, publish anyway .

Need extra motivation? Have you checked out The Write Practice’s 100 Day Book program ? It’s the best way to stop letting fear of writing control you and get that book done. Click here to find more information on the course.

What scares you most about writing and/or the business side of writing? What are some steps you can take to overcome that fear?  Let me know in the comments !

Today I want you to spend fifteen minutes writing about a time you were scared to do something but did it anyway. Describe the exact feelings of fear you had. How did you feel after you'd done what scared you?

When you’re finished, share your work in the Pro Practice Workshop here (and if you’re not a member yet, you can join here ).

Sarah Gribble

Sarah Gribble is the author of dozens of short stories that explore uncomfortable situations, basic fears, and the general awe and fascination of the unknown. She just released Surviving Death , her first novel, and is currently working on her next book.

Follow her on Instagram or join her email list for free scares.

Work with Sarah Gribble?

Bestselling author with over five years of coaching experience. Sarah Gribble specializes in working with Dark Fantasy, Fantasy, Horror, Speculative Fiction, and Thriller books. Sound like a good fit for you?

Trackbacks/Pingbacks

• 8 Bold Ways to Overcome Your Fear of Writing | rogerpseudonym - […] “ Stay afraid, but do it anyway. What’s important is the action. You don’t have to wait to be…
• A New Writer’s Fear – My Writing Experience - […] 8 Bold Ways to Overcome Your Fear of Writing The Write Practice […]
• Team Names - Cool, Awesome, Funny and Tough Names for Teams - […] below names are for those that are tough, strong, badass team. Any team that specializes in being bold with…

Submit a Comment Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Submit Comment

Join over 450,000 readers who are saying YES to practice. You’ll also get a free copy of our eBook 14 Prompts :

Popular Resources

Book Writing Tips & Guides Creativity & Inspiration Tips Writing Prompts Grammar & Vocab Resources Best Book Writing Software ProWritingAid Review Writing Teacher Resources Publisher Rocket Review Scrivener Review Gifts for Writers

Books By Our Writers

You've got it! Just us where to send your guide.

Enter your email to get our free 10-step guide to becoming a writer.

You've got it! Just us where to send your book.

Enter your first name and email to get our free book, 14 Prompts.

Want to Get Published?

Enter your email to get our free interactive checklist to writing and publishing a book.