Why are we so scared to fail?

I was fortunate enough to be invited to and attend a POP event that questioned choice. Interestingly as the discussion progressed we digressed onto the subject of failure and the fear that we have of it.
Marianne Cantwell talked about the paradox of choice: When we don’t have it we want it; when we have it we are paralysed by it, What if the wrong choice leads us to the wrong place. We seem to call this failure, we learn a lot from failure. Why can’t we call it a lesson?
A teacher gave some thoughts. One of which was the removal of erasers from the classroom. If her kids make a mistake they should embrace it!
Why is success tied so closely to what others think or judge bout us? Why do we let them. Why do we compare our lives to others. We are unique just like everyone else, why can’t we see our success on our terms.
We spend so much time teaching children that they need a gold star, a grade or a mark for everything they do that is seen as right or valuable, they come to expect it for everything. For the times they don’t get it, they stop doing those things and their paths narrow to the rigid limitations of the education system they are part of.
A gentlemen called Albert gave a great definition that choice and consideration and decision are different things and we should be careful when using those terms. Choice is ours for the taking. Consideration is making a decision ab0ut options that are given to us by someone else. We should not determine what success looks like based on someone else’s definitions or options.
Fear is in all of us, we can choose to listen to the narrative or we can choose to ignore it. What is the worst that can happen? We need to start building a positive memory bank of times when we tried something and we didn’t fail, or it wasn’t as bad as we thought or it taught us something new about the world or ourselves. We need to give ourselves the narrative to deal with any outcome. I am not talking here of blind positivity or life and death situations. I am talking about the things we don’t start, the life not lead because we allowed fear of failure stop us in our tracks. We won’t regret things we did, but we may regret things we didn’t do because of failure
Inspired by POPAGANDA, the one thing, Marianne Cantwell, the lattitude collective
Previously posted on Medium.
In the simplest terms, I help people to get ready to profitably scale. What you do with a room full of people is very different to how you do it when they cross cities, continents or oceans.

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​Ghilaine Chan
Activating people to work better together and flourish. Working on interesting projects with people I like to work with, strengthening how you motivate yourself and collaborate with others.