This is not my usual fare, but it’s a topic that is dear to me because I see it costing our society huge amounts in lost potential. The consequences of being afraid to try can mean loss of revenue, loss of confidence, loss of joy in life.
Fear of failing can hold people back from achieving their potential. The fear comes from the perceived consequences of failure. But often, it is a misinterpretation of what failing actually means that makes it so unpleasant.
As humans, we are very good a drawing the wrong conclusion. We are princes of misinterpretation, queens of misunderstanding. And at the end of the day, while perception may not be reality, interpretation certainly is, so it’s mostly up to us. If the way we interpret stuff now isn’t helping us, we simply need to change it.
Simply said, but perhaps not simply done. The consequences of failure can be highly unpleasant if we perceive them that way. Particularly scrutiny - public or private. People who are very sensitive to criticism or ridicule, or people who are their own harshest critics, are most susceptible.
But again, perception is within our control. There are a host of self-help sites around, all saying generally quite unhelpful things: ‘it’s not failure, it’s a learning experience,’ ‘understand the benefits of failure,’ ‘put it in perspective.’ Actually, that last one is good advice.
Put it in perspective.
The theory of attribution, or more commonly called attribution theory, is concerned with how people explain or ‘attribute’ the causes of behaviour, and how the broad categories correlate with how successful or otherwise people feel they are.
People who attribute success to their own long-term (permanent) characteristics, and failure to their own short-term efforts, seem to feel better about themselves than those who ‘disclaim’ their own successes, attributing them to luck, fluke or external factors, and who take possession of their failures, believing them to be indicators of underlying permanent personality characteristics. And also more successful than those who blame others.
So do we just pretend that we are brilliant? That would be empty positive thinking, because at some point, the weight of evidence may put things into perspective. So it may be that it is perspective that we need from the start. A realistic attitude to ourselves, our efforts, our learning. An understanding of being human, being frail but also being strong. Of forgiving our mistakes, of always trying our best.