Dealing with a fear of failure
Everyone experiences fear of
failure sometimes. How you deal with it determines whether it affects you or not. Fear of failure is the fear of failing in situations where you are judged or think you are judged. Everyone reacts differently in such situations. Personality, upbringing, and stress play a role.
Two types of fear of failure
- Active fear of failure: You try to control the fear by working hard. Students study very intensively to avoid failing. Sometimes this leads to overload. Perfectionism is a way to manage fear of failure. But if the pressure gets too high, it can lead to passive fear of failure. You give up.
- Passive fear of failure: You try to control the fear by procrastinating. If you do little, the chance of success is small and you know why you fail. The idea of working hard and still failing is harder to bear. In the short term, this gives you peace and protects your self-confidence. But as the deadline approaches, you get a lot of stress and anxiety. Sadness and hopelessness can arise because you started too late again.
Passive fear of failure can turn into active fear of failure. You then try to make up for lost time by working through the night, for example.
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Forms of expression
Behaviour
- Study and relaxation:: You almost can't stop studying. You continuously worry about your studies during relaxation. You do not start studying because it causes too much tension.
- Study planning: You make very tight and too optimistic schedules (trying to study for 6 exams in 2 weeks). You engage in planning whilst you should be studying (procrastination).
- Interacting with others: You spend too much time with friends. Being agitated by messages about study progress from fellow students. Reacting dismissively to parents or friends.
Physical effects
- Feeling ill: symptoms such as headache, stomach ache, hyperventilation, nausea.
- Feeling tense: Sweating, muscle cramps, turning red, being very alert.
- Sleeping problems: Difficulty falling asleep or not sleeping at all, nightmares.
- Eating problems: Eating too little or too much or binge eating to reduce stress (eating disorder).
Cognitive consequences
- Inhibited thinking: Having difficulty with storing information.
- Mulling: Overthinking on certain topics.
- Affective consequences:: Feelings of anxiety, gloom, sadness, or frustration.
What can you do yourself?
Learning to cope with the fear of failure is about learning to regulate your emotions. We humans are focused on avoiding the feeling of anxiety as much as possible. Learning to regulate and tolerate this feeling is a challenge.
Talk about it with others. Although you may be ashamed of the symptoms, you will find out that many people suffer from this.