Overcoming fear of failure with hypnosis

Fear of failure is terrible. If you have made a small mistake you can totally panic. Start trembling and make even more wrong decisions out of fear. So fear of failure is not only annoying, it also means that correcting a small mistake can get totally bogged down and you are even further from home. On the other hand, you then also notice that your whole existence does not end when you make a mistake, but of course you don't have that idea. You are already afraid of making a mistake in the first place.

Because fear of failure can be a major problem in both your personal and business life, in this article I will discuss fear of failure and what you can do about it.

Everyone experiences some degree of fear of failure, because nobody likes making mistakes. However, if this causes you to avoid certain behaviors out of fear of making mistakes—and you’d rather not try at all than try to succeed—then there’s a problem. The feelings associated with failure—such as disappointment, frustration, anger, regret, and confusion—aren’t pleasant, but for most people, they aren’t so unpleasant that they’d rather not even try. Fear of failure, therefore, often has nothing to do with those feelings, but rather with feelings of shame.

You are embarrassed because you are a human being who makes mistakes.

Shame is an unhealthy emotion because it makes us feel bad about our actions, namely guilt about what you did, and it makes you feel bad about the effort you put into something, namely regret. This is very unfortunate because exactly what you do and how much effort you put into something often says something about yourself as well, and therefore shame is actually a very destructive emotion for your self-confidence.

Fear of failure symptoms

If you are not sure if you have fear of failure you can check yourself with the following symptoms:

• You are afraid about what other people will think of you if you fail.
• You are unsure of your own ability to achieve your goals when you fail.
• You fear that people will find you uninteresting if you fail.
• You are insecure about your intelligence and ability to perform tasks when you fail.
• You worry that people you care about will think worse of you if you fail.
• You tend to tell people ahead of time that it may not work to temper expectations.
• When you fail, you struggle to think of what you could have done differently to succeed.
• You often get headaches, stomachaches or other physical symptoms just before a deadline or before you need to do something that keep you from getting everything done.
• You are often distracted by other tasks that prevent you from getting the main task done on time. Afterwards, those interrupting tasks turn out not to be so important after all.
• You struggle with procrastination and often find yourself just short on time to prepare something properly.

If these symptoms appear recognizable, you may be suffering from fear of failure. The annoying thing is that fear of failure often takes place subconsciously so it is not noticeable, such as the interruptions to other tasks and procrastination that does not immediately show that you are afraid of failure. The beauty is that hypnosis affects the very subconscious.

Fear of failure children

I was zapping while watching telly the other day and got stuck on an in-depth report on childhood fear of failure due to the ever-increasing regulatory pressure in education. For example, children didn't want to transfer to grade three "because I won't be allowed to make mistakes anymore," said the child. Heartbreaking in my opinion.

This is why it is important to teach children that making mistakes is part of life. No one is perfect. For example, you can talk about mistakes you yourself made during school days and how bad or not bad that actually was for the rest of your life.

In addition, it is important to teach children that it is precisely mistakes that enable you to move forward. Mistakes are often the best learning moments in life. Not only for work, but also in your personal life.

Children often experience the emotions associated with mistakes for the first time, having often forgotten about it after a while, but that can be quite impressive at some point. Especially when children are stressed by mistakes, it is important to teach children how to deal with emotions that come with making mistakes. Acknowledging those emotions is often the first step.

Hypnosis can help your child figure out why they’re so afraid of making a mistake right now and provide suggestions on how best to deal with a mistake and why making mistakes isn’t a big deal. The subconscious mind is then influenced in such a way that they develop beliefs that will help them move forward in life, step out of their comfort zone, and seize an opportunity.

Fear of failure adults

Fear of failure can also arise later in life, for example, due to a misjudgment that leads to feelings of shame. If someone then rubs salt into the wound—such as during a performance review or even a termination meeting —the fear of failure and the associated behavior can develop more quickly.

In addition, you can also be criticized for your own stuff or, on the contrary, look in awe at other people's furnishings and therefore think you are not doing something right. As a result, fear of failure can occur in both business and personal life.

Fear of failure and perfectionism

If you’re a perfectionist, that can exacerbate your fear of failure. That’s because nothing is allowed to go wrong at all, and perhaps things that have nothing to do with the task itself must even go well. For example, you might be writing a text, and for that, your desk must also be perfectly organized. That’s actually completely unnecessary for the task at hand.

Or maybe you have to give a presentation and need to look your best. Even a single pimple can make you feel like a failure, even though everyone gets pimples from time to time.

In addition, research shows that there is a link between being a perfectionist and experiencing panic attacks, fear of making mistakes, and anxiety about the correctness of one’s actions. These are all symptoms associated with fear of failure.

Fear of failure therapy

Fear of failure is often a subconscious issue. That’s why it’s wise to seek help if you’re worried about making mistakes or feel insecure about your own abilities. Hypnotherapy can certainly help free you from the fear of failure. This is because hypnotherapy works directly on your subconscious and can break through the thought patterns that fuel this fear.

While you are under hypnosis, the hypnotherapist can explore with you what fears are causing you to suffer from fear of failure. What thoughts reinforce the fear of failure and whether there is a pattern in your actions when you have to do something where you are afraid of failure.

By changing the beliefs that gave rise to the fear of failure while you are under hypnosis, you can develop beliefs that actually help you bring out the best in yourself . The hypnotherapist can do this through suggestions.

Thought patterns can also be modified. For example, by changing the pattern once so that it no longer works against you.

The rituals that fuel fear of failure can be taken a closer look at to see if those rituals can also be interrupted so that you actually make the chance of failure smaller instead of bigger.

You can also learn ego-strengthening techniques. Fear of failure isn’t good for your self-confidence, and by boosting that, you can reduce your fear of failure.

Lastly, but not necessarily always, you can receive self-hypnosis exercises from the hypnotherapist that allow you to reduce your fear of failure even at home in your own time and during moments when anxiety strikes.

Fear of failure tips

First, you can start by applying the following tips to reduce your fear of failure.

1. Examine why or what gave you fear of failure.

Especially if your fear of failure began early in life, you can now, as an adult, look back on that moment and see that the fear of failure was completely unnecessary. If you’re having trouble identifying that moment and forming your own thoughts about it, a hypnotherapist can help you—through regression therapy —to identify the moment when the fear of failure arose and view it in a different light.

2. Simplify what you need to do.

Sometimes a project may seem too big to handle. Therefore, first consider what parts a project consists of and in what order you can execute those parts. As it were, you determine a number of mini and simple goals that will help you achieve the ultimate goal.

3. Review what you've learned from mistakes.

How far would you have come in your life if you had never made mistakes? Making mistakes is part of life and so is learning from them. Therefore, making a mistake is actually not a bad thing at all. Consider the positive things you got out of your mistakes.

Would you like to learn more about how to overcome fear of failure and how hypnosis can help? Check out the events and training programs offered by the Hypnosis Institute of the Netherlands.

Sources:

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-squeaky-wheel/201306/10-signs-you-might-have-fear-failure

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S000579679800083