Ever tried? Always failed? No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail amend

"E'er tried? Ever failed? No affair. Try over again. Fail once again. Neglect better".

This quote by Samuel Beckett, sported as a tattoo on the arm of Tennis great Stan Wawrinka, sets out the disquisitional concept that we can choose the relationship nosotros have with failure, rather than always being negatively affected by the prospect of failure.

A healthy mental attitude towards the role of failure for anyone in their pursuit of meaningful achievements can be game changing.

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Over the years, we've supported many people who've been successful and we've always helped them celebrate their own specific motivational drivers, rather than forcing them to be motivated in a particular way. This has led us to enjoy exploring the power of fear of failure and how to harness it with the same open mindedness that nosotros explore the power of a desire to succeed and how to focus it.

It's all about inspiring activeness

Whether you lot have a want to succeed or a fearfulness of failure, the of import affair is that yous have a fuel for activeness . Your bulldoze to avoid unwanted things happening, or to brand valued things happen will typically issue in y'all committing to activity, and that'southward all that matters.

There's huge amounts written on target setting well-nigh how to harness the power of the desired outcomes, but and then little provided to requite those fuelled by fear the aforementioned confidence to relish the motivational benefits of their personality bias!

If we were all taught how to 'fail better' from an early age, aslope beingness bombarded with the well meaning treatises on the ability of goal setting, then we'd accept a lot more people enjoying their pursuit of success fully powered past their personality rather than feeling held dorsum past information technology.

Failing Better

The lack of information about how to fail ameliorate got u.s. thinking about how we could fill the gap, and inspired by work with Olympic athletes, at that place'south a couple of simple ideas that we institute really help.

  • If you want to fail better, then start by defining what failure actually means to you and what the specific failure is that you're most motivated to accomplish. We found that by asking this question you discover that the failure that is feared is seldom simply about not delivering a effect. It's unremarkably about the fear of how someone might perceive you as a result of not achieving something and that's unremarkably coupled with a pretty articulate understanding of what 'failing to perform' really looks and feels like.
  • If you want to neglect meliorate, then showtime thinking virtually the ways in which you tin can actively bring the failure about intentionally. Understanding how you're really in command of 'producing the failure' creates a much healthier relationship with the fear you're experiencing and it's a lot easier to redirect that fear into a helpful energy when you've accustomed that y'all could bring about your own demise if you were so inclined. This "paradoxical intention" approach allows people to enjoy their fright and welcome it in a non-threatening way and we've seen it transform people'due south outlooks to moments where the force per unit area to deliver is usually highest.

A powerful mix

For most people, there is a mix of desire to succeed and fear of failure, and when nosotros start to look for the positive activity that both can inspire, we're able to bask their contrasting philosophies rather than be conflicted past it.

As William Shakespeare observed in Hamlet, "In that location is aught such as good or bad, simply thinking makes it and so." Past embracing that indelible wisdom our motivations tin can ever be a strength for positive activity and our pursuit of meaningful achievements can become all the more enjoyable as a result.