Kassidy Barney

Period 5
January 8, 2016
Mr. Lundstrum
Fear Of Failure
There are multifarious fears that people can have. Whether it be a fear of snakes,
fear of heights, fear of water, fear of spiders...it doesnt matter. Everyone is afraid of
something and no one is afraid of nothing. It is a natural response to growing up and
facing a world that is so colossal. Fear isnt always about what you are afraid of though.
Its also about the emotions involved. Failing generates a feeling of unworthiness and
ignominy in us. Failure makes individuals feel as though they have let everyone down
and it hurts their pride which is a very influential feeling and, just like failure, it makes
people lose self-esteem and feel generally uncomfortable.
In the newspaper article from The Huffington Post, The real fear in fear of failure:
Part III, Dr. Jim Taylor explicates, In working with a young athlete recently, I had
another epiphany about fear of failure that has taken my understanding of fear of failure
to a new level. The real fear is not failure, the meaning you attach to failure, or even
total failure. Instead, the real fear of failure is about the fear of experiencing the painful
emotions underlying total failure that young people think they will feel if they fail. All of
these young people's efforts are devoted to avoiding having to experience those truly
unpleasant emotions that they believe will surely come with total failure (Taylor).

Failure is not a physical fear it is a mental fear. Which means it will not inflict
physical damage but mental and it might even promote immorality. Failure definitely
influences our actions. Whether for the good or the bad it is up to you to adjudicate. As I
delve deeper into the denotation of Failure, keep the following questions in mind. What
life choices does failure influence? Is failure good or bad? What is failure? How does
the human mind cope with feelings of failure? Why do people fear a concept that
everyone experiences?
The Cambridge English Dictionary expounds that Failure is, The fact of not
doing something that you must do or are expected to do. Some examples are when
you are elected as valedictorian and you are expected to say an amazing talk that
inspires people to be the change they want to see in the world, but instead you say a
talk that influences people to not go to college. That was an example of a major fail.
Another example that is not as major is when you mess up a jump in a ballet
performance. Of course many people have different opinions on what is major and what
is an insignificant fail.
On the same note, these failures might influence if you will continue on to college
or if you will try out for another ballet recital. Failure DOES influence our actions and life
choices. It influences our social life: I failed to go to my best friends birthday party and
now my friends are going to hate me. It influences our academic life: I failed to get a
scholarship and now I cant go to college. It influences our athletic life: I failed to kick the
ball in the net even though it was passed right to me and now I cant be a professional
athlete. It even influences our private life: I have failed to remember my mothers

birthday and now I cant face my family. Failure influences all of these factors, but in
some cases failure influences us for the better and can even lead us to success.
In the article,Why Failure Is Good For Success, Pauline Estrem propounds, To
achieve the greatest success, you have to embrace the prospect of failure...The
sweetest victory is the one that's most difficult...The exceptions are those failures that
become stepping stones to later success. Such is the case with Thomas Edison, whose
most memorable invention was the light bulb, which purportedly took him 1,000 tries
before he developed a successful prototype. How did it feel to fail 1,000 times? a
reporter asked. I didnt fail 1,000 times, Edison responded. The light bulb was an
invention with 1,000 steps (Estrem).
Failure is how people become successful. The most famous and salient figures in
the world became who they are today because of failure. They failed at something then
learned from that failure, making them successful and triumphant. Success, as some
philosophers may say, is what everyone is striving to accomplish in life. It is the reason
inventors create avant-garde inventions. It is the reason artists strive to create influential
artwork. It is the reason students work so hard to get that A on a report card.
Since failure leads to success, it might be the true fundamental concept that all
individuals seek in their life. Yes, that is right. Everyone seeks (unknowingly) and
experiences failure. So, if everyone endures failure, why are people afraid of it? The
physical reason of fear of failure is a series of chain reactions that happen in your brain.
First, an event occurs, in this case its failure, that initiates the chain reaction. Second,
the brain sends this event to the thalamus to evaluate the situation. Third, the thalamus
thinks it might cause harm to you, so it sends neural impulses to the amygdala. Fourth,

the amygdala sends information to the hypothalamus to initiate the fight-or-flight

response.
Was the failure you faced too strenuous, so you are going to give up on your
achievements, or are you going to learn from your failures and eventually succeed in
life? Personally I would choose not to give up and to succeed in life.
Failure is a part of life that everyone has to go through in order to become
stronger and more resilient to difficulties that will occur. We would all be cruising along
in life right now if failure was not a concept that transpired. Although cruising through life
might sound convenient, it would mean that eventually life would get monotonous and
everyone would get bored. Therefore, failure is definitely a vital tool to the process of
life. Failure provides a challenge to mankind that makes our minds work faster and
provide more effective results that are more successful.
In the book,Failing Forward by John C. Maxwell it is written,Why do some
people achieve so much?...Family background?...Wealth?...Opportunity?...High
morals?...The absence of hardship?...No, none of these things are the key. When it
comes right down to it, I know of only one factor that separates those who consistently
shine from those who dont: The difference between average people and achieving
people is their perception of and response to failure. Nothing else has the same kind of
impact on people's ability to achieve and to accomplish whatever their minds and hearts
desire (Maxwell, 14).
The reason successful business owners and other successful individuals have
achieved so much is because of how many times they have failed. The product that has
failed multiple times is always better than the product that has never failed because

every time it fails the people that invented it come out with new and improved
commodity that has been engineered to not make the same mistakes again. Learning is
often times the result of failure. When you fail, you experience emotions that make you
uncomfortable like, embarrassment and shame. These are emotions that people tend to
shy away from and in order to have a lesser chance of enduring these emotions again
you do things differently the next time and you dont make the same mistakes twice.
Another excerpt from the book Failing forward John C. Maxwell formulates,
What is failure? As a child I thought it was a percentage. Sixty-nine and lower meant
failure. Seventy and above signifies success. That thinking didnt help me. Failure isnt a
percentage or a test. Its not a single event. Its a process...When I graduated from
college with my bachelors degree, I finished in the top five percent of my class. It didnt
mean a thing. I had played the school game successfully, and I had absorbed a lot of
information. But I wasn't at all prepared for what was ahead of me (Maxwell, 16).
In order to learn and be prepared for post school success, which means real life,
you need to become used to failure and know how to overcome the emotions that come
with it. You need to know how to pertain your failures to your life and use them to your
advantage. Failure can only be advantageous to you if you dont let it be a hindrance.
There are many cases in which people have said that failure can bring people
down and keep them from trying again. All of the expectations that people have for you
causes them to be stressed and anxious. So, how can failure be good? The people who
say that are examples of when people let the negative emotions from failure overcome
them and they chose not to let their failures be an opportunity of growth and education.
Instead, they decided to let their failures hinder and impede them.

Failure is human life in a nutshell. We all fail. We all make mistakes. Only some
of us choose to let those failures and mistakes be opportunities to improve and learn.
Even fewer choose to broadcast their failures and mistakes for others to see and learn
from. Education is deemed the top priority to most people. What is education, but
failure? There is a story about a woman in the 1960s that wanted to make a living for
herself by being a business leader. She started at a business that was made up of all
men. She failed over and over again. The men kept beating her down and they wanted
to see her fail. She did not fail though. She pushed through and was enlightened from
her mistakes and failures. She ended up more successful than all of those men from
that occupation. She became the ceo of her own business. Although it was a small
business, she achieved what she wanted to achieve and was very successful.
The point of this essay is to help people understand the importance of failure in
their lives.Failure comes before and is a vital part in succeeding. Every prosperous
business has experienced failure and has conquered the feelings of ignominy,
mortification and degradation that accompany it. Choosing to disregard those feelings or
grow from them is the real challenge and once you have learned to overcome those
feelings, you have accomplished a part of your life process that helps in widening the
horizons of education. Failure is not to be taken lightly and everyone should recognize
failure for what it is. Success. Education. Perseverance. Prosperity. progress and many
other congenial terms. Failure is how you achieve great accomplishments.

Works cited:
Magazine:
Estrem, Pauline. Why Failure Is Good For Success.Success. 13 Sep., 2010: N. Pag.
Web. 13 Jan., 2016.

Newspaper:
Taylor, Jim. The Real Fear In Fear Of Failure: Part 3 The Huffington Post. 10 Nov.,
2015: N. Pag. Huff Post gps for the soul. Web. 13 Jan., 2016
Book:
Maxwell, John. Failing Forward: Turning Mistakes Into Stepping Stones For Success.
New York. Harpercollins Christian Publishing, 2007. Google Book Search. web. 13 Jan., 2016.