Failure is a Product.

It is immediate qualitative feedback. It does not signal to give up but hints that you need to pivot and spawn new ideas to your next step. Do you see your project as a game that you cannot lose?

There are only two base emotions, FEAR, and LOVE. These two expressions derive all the other feels in life. Love is peace and joy, whereas fear is immobilization. Both are powerful, but our brain perceives pain and anxiety to be 100 times stronger motivation than pleasure, dreams, or aspirations, although both are polar opposites.

The polarity of love and fear is grounded in the irony of the more you love, the more you stand to lose. I guess this is why we feel so sad when loved ones die.  

The fear of loss makes us act irrationally. Fear creates a context for bad decisions. It is visceral and comes out in our bodies.

Fear is both complex and a simple stopper of our progress in life. We are losing if we are not getting for ourselves. The truth is that fear leads to panic, leading to lousy action, confusion, and a spiral into disaster.

Emotional Fear.

There are different types of fear, and some are reasonably justified. It would be best if you were afraid of a wild lion; it is life-threatening, and a fear reaction shows that our lizard brain is still powerfully at work. Today, we want to address when the reptilian brain creates emotional fear of rejection, failure, loss, the unknown, or competition that keeps us stuck.

Many of these fears come from our childhood. This type of fear boils down to “we do not think we are worth it; we are not good enough, not skilled enough.” It is not fear of failure; it is a lack of confidence in our-self. The risk of loss is the magnitude of the failure’s consequences, combined with the probability of its occurrence.

If we are confident, then the probability of failure is low, and we would push on because we genuinely believe that we will make it. Fear is the panic of not getting our desired outcome and an external locus of control depending on others’ approval.

Fear is what holds us back.

If they reject my work, then they reject me. We all suffer from the fear of criticism, but the truth is that it is a blessing because the real curse is to be ignored, enjoy the attention, and do your best to manage it. The main reason for procrastination is fear of failure and pain of rejection. Just ask any salesperson. 80% of salespeople procrastinate and make their first call by 11:30 because of fear of rejection, but what if you could not fail? Would you not start at 6 am to crank out as much as you can?

We fear leaving our job for a dream job because we fear the lack of money.

Your only limits are your doubts and fears; Fear only exists because you cannot know your real you. Growth and anxiety go hand in hand. I guarantee that anyone who has ever achieved stared at fear.

• What are your biggest fears?
• What would you do if you could not fail?
• What is your biggest fear of loss?
• Where do you fear criticism and rejection most?
• What would you do if you had 20 Million dollars and ten years to live?

7 Tactics to Deal with Fear

Be a Baby Again.

Overcome fear with baby steps, do a little more each time expecting crappy but get started. Even failure pushes you forward. Enjoy the newness of each moment, clear out fears, allow yourself the freedom of a baby, lose yourself. Refuse to be worried, upset, or live in fear by detaching from the results. Fight fear with openness.

I ask you to resist the fear of failure. Keep ASKING your question and try. The keyword is “try,” you might surprise yourself. Yoga instructor and & reiki healer MJ Heart often says, “I invite you to the land of eventually, do the hard things, keep TRYING and one day out in the future. Eventually, we will get there.” To succeed in life, make a habit of doing the things you fear.

Change your Paradigm.

It would help if you first acknowledged that what you are feeling is pressure, sound pressure, and not fear. Courage is not the absence of fear but the management of anxiety. Get barreled by fear, hold on to its fraught swell, and enjoy the ride. It is about staying there just 2 mins longer, never giving up, confronting it head-on, then stick with it despite the immediate result.

3 Second Rule.

Do it faster than the brain can talk you out of it. Far better things happen when we try something and not fear that the worst will stop us. Resistance is the fear of the unknown that stands like materialized Gandolph blocking the path we need to push through. Desensitize fear: feel the fear/pressure and do it anyway. You will surprise yourself. People act out of fear or desire for improvement; it’s 2.5 times as powerful when you beat fear than aligned with the desire for gain. The fun makes the learning much faster, now reverse the lens, the more fear makes the success more powerful.

Get Pooed on and Laugh.

I love criticism and have no fear of starting over or becoming a beginner again, but go fast and hustle, speed slaughters. Ideas and beliefs come from references and fear by pain. To make new ideas or beliefs, we need further references, e.g., by reading or new teachers. Leverage where the problem is severe, love complaints, and do not fear failure. Take risks, make mistakes, and recover. It’s fun.

Make your Strategy. 

Strategy is a framework, a system that delivers consistent near-perfect results every time. Once you know that strategy and how to execute it, fear goes away. Confront the one thing holding you back and destroy it. If fear diminishes, then confidence will increase. Fear and worry are twins that go everywhere together. Belief overcomes the Fear of rejection, the Fear of failure. When you look in the mirror, you will know your chances of winning; that is an internal locus of control.

Monitor your Language.

Listen to your language, and you can tell your internal mental model. If fear dominates your life, you will hear it. People can read this even in your body language, so change your language and change your life.

It is not about doing but being. What you are at your core is being the one right gift that only you can deliver. Your uniqueness eliminates fear and has your built-in action. Once you have a MUST and CAN do it attitude, you will not fear anymore but take action. You know when you must do it when it’s massive and immediately get it done. My table tennis coach Shah once told me, even if I lose the point, I hit the ball with confidence, I attack and control the game. That is the essence of being.

Do not fear strong colleagues or ambitious subordinates; do not resent talent. Most people live with the fear of competition, risking harm to reputation, but all of these are illusions. Focus on the unique you.

Keep Dreaming, Big. 

Dreams are the fuel for the fire to explode fear. Feed the faith, not the fear. Passion is the only thing that has consistently brought joy. Naturally love novelty, the only way around fear is through it. Be brutally honest, being oneself without fear and judgment. Face the fear, relish it, make friends with fear.

Let us all take our life on the hero’s journey, starting with illumination, discomfort, and pain, the call to adventure, face our doubt, uncertainty, fear, and hardships. We need a mentor. We cannot go it alone. We push past the brink of giving up, and we face our supreme ordeal, and, in the end, we slay our dragon.

Name your fear and slay it.

Stephen Choo Quan

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