You Can’t Truly Fail, So Stop Fearing It

The way you define failure changes everything

Famous innovators, entrepreneurs, and creatives alike talk about how many times you will fail before you succeed. As a result, anyone who has ever had an unlikely dream has probably asked themselves,

“What happens if I fail?”

Fear of failure, or better, fear of what other people will think if you fail, holds so many of us back from going after whatever it is we truly desire.

Say you’re an aspiring actress, but you refuse to audition because you can’t stop replaying the voice of your high school drama teacher who said you’ll never make it. Or maybe your dream is to create documentary films, but you never upload because your parents insist YouTube isn’t a real profession.

Perhaps you don’t care about the opinions of others, but you set astronomical expectations for yourself. In that case, failure would mean personal disappointment. There’s nothing scarier than that.

The idea of failing intimidates all of us, no matter how tough, brave, or self-confident you are. But, while we all fear failure, very few of us ask what it means to fail. Like success, failure has a million definitions, but only one matters.

Yours.

As we grow up in whatever community we come from, we learn what it means to be successful by societal standards. Where I’m from, success was getting accepted to Stanford. It was making a name for yourself in Silicon Valley and affording a beach house in Tiburon.

At the very least, success meant making enough money to remain in California, which is easier desired than done. Finally, as a child from a divorced household, success for me also meant building a family that wouldn’t break.

Marriage. Money. Mansion. For many years that was my definition of success, and thus, by default, this was my definition of failure: divorced, broke, homeless.

Most of us would agree no one wants to end up in any of those predicaments, and any sane person would be fearful of such fates. It’s only natural to worry what you don’t want to happen may come to pass.

Still, there’s a problem with having a fear-based definition of failure; it assumes that failing has everything to do with the presence of bad and nothing to do with the absence of good.

Isn’t it still failing if you manage to avoid what you don’t want for your life, but you never get what you actually desire?

Wouldn’t it make the most sense to risk experiencing bad moments, even some of your very worst moments, if only for the chance at reaching your ultimate dream?

From a woman who understands what it’s like to “fail” miserably and rise epically from the ashes, J.K. Rowling has this to say about failure:

“Some failure in life is inevitable. It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all — in which case, you fail by default.” — J.K. Rowling

Rowling says failure is inevitable, and it may very well be depending on how you define it. If failure means you will have to face challenges you never asked for, failure is unavoidable. If it means you won’t always get the results you want, then it is certain.

However, if failure is as simple as never trying, then no, you don’t have to fail. You can’t, even, unless you make that choice.

While you don’t always control your life circumstances, you determine your values, priorities, and behaviors. Most of all, you’re responsible for your habits.

If you’re terrified of failing, then it’s time to rewrite a couple of your definitions. To succeed now means to pursue, and to fail means to give up. That’s it.

Now, as long as you have hope and the determination to persevere, you can’t fail. Even so, you’ll be afraid.

“Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the assessment that something else is more important than fear.” — Franklin D. Roosevelt

What in your life is worth facing down your greatest fears? Every day I show up to write, I wrestle with doubts: What if I’m not good enough? Why would anyone listen to me? What makes me think I can do this? Is writing online even a real job?

I’m still terrified I won’t accomplish my goals or that I’ll suffer in the pursuit of them, but I no longer fear failure.

Simply because I try, I cannot fail. The same is true for you.

Don’t waste another second worrying about what might happen if you take a chance on your dream. You already know what happens if you don’t.

Is a painful certainty better than a hopeful uncertainty? Only you can decide.

For me, falling short in the pursuit of my dreams beats achieving a version of success that was never mine to begin with. If you feel the same, stop fearing failure, and start worrying about a life where you fail by default, a life in which you never leaped for fear of where you might land.

Have the courage to leap. Falling doesn’t mean failing, at least not until you refuse to get back up.

Author’s note: I was inspired to write this because of my own fear of failing and because the more I think about what failure means, the more ambiguous it becomes. I don’t want you to fail by default, to miss out on what you want because you were too afraid to take chances. As long as you try, you can never truly fail. I hope you trust me on that. — Love, Bella

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