When it comes to dealing with our fears of failing, sticks and stones may break our bones but words will really destroy us.

I broke my leg when I was 17 and it healed before I turned 18. I’ve had no adverse effects from that break.

On the other hand, what we say to ourselves can destroy our ability to achieve our goals and we may believe what we say to ourselves forever.

The fear of failure is not a thing. It is not like a heavy, marble table that we can just move out of the way. We just think that it is.

What really stops us, from being bold, from really stepping out and going beyond our comfort zones, is that we think of fear of failure as a thing and things are hard to change. Tables are things. Our fear of failure is not a thing. It is nothing (no thing). You can’t overcome something that doesn’t exist.

The fear of failure exists completely in our minds. We say we’re fearful and that’s what we experience. We say we’re excited and that’s what we experience.

Imagine, for example, you’re about to pick up the phone and call someone for a date. You may notice that your heart is beating wildly, your palms are sweating and your muscles are tense. This is real fear, you may think.

Or is it? Actually, we would experience the same exact physiological response if we were excited. After all, whether being on a roller coaster is fearful or exciting for us depends on what we tell ourselves about the experience.

Recently, a friend told me that he had always wanted to start his own business, but he was afraid of failing. How does he know it’s fear and not excitement?

The other day, I spoke to the Board of a nonprofit organization that was looking for ways to raise half a million dollars when, up until then, they had never raised more than 50,000. In order to do that, the members of the Board were going to have to be a lot bolder in their requests. They were going to have to call people they had never called before and they were going to have to ask those people for more money than they had ever asked before.

However several members of the Board told me they were afraid to do so. How do they know it’s fear and not excitement?

People often asked me how for advice about writing a book. They would love to write a book, they often say, but they are fearful of doing so. How do they know it’s fear and not excitement? 

Fear of failure is an entirely human construct that is brought into existence when we label what we’re feeling as fear. Fear doesn’t exist anywhere outside of our language. We call it fear and it is so. After all, “in the beginning was The Word.”

This is not to suggest that there aren’t real fears out there. Put a gun to my head and, believe me, I won’t claim I’m excited.

So what to do? I’m going to use making a phone call to someone you’re fearful of talking to as an example:

1.Don’t think. Don’t plan. Don’t strategize. Don’t try to change your thoughts. Those thoughts are just thoughts. They aren’t tables. Don’t try to move them.

2.Pick up the phone.

3.Press the numbers on the phone that will connect you with the person you want to talk to

4.Make your request of this person

5.Notice if you got what you wanted.

6.If you did, congratulate yourself

7.If you didn’t, get coaching to figure out what to do next.

Don’t try to control you fear. That which we resist persists. Don’t try to change your fear. That would be treating it like a table that can be moved. Just let your fear be and get into action.

You will never “heal” your fear like a broken bone will heal. Your fear isn’t real and that’s why you can’t “heal” it. Give up expecting that your fear will, somehow, disappear and just get into action.

QUESTIONS? COMMENTS? LJBARKAN@THEPIVOTALFACTOR.COM

Permission to reproduce is granted as long as the following citation is included:

Reprinted by permission of the author, Larry Barkan http://www.larrybarkan.com