Is fear of failure stopping you from starting an Internet or affiliate marketing business or stymying your success in that pursuit?
Before I go on, let me assure you that ‘fear of failure' is not a mistake, per se. Succumbing to, and not dealing with, fear of failure is the real mistake.
I've dealt with fear of failure most of my life and it surely started with parents who expected to have a perfect child without having to provide guidance or encouragement along the way.
Their parenting failures presented a challenge I needed deal with if I wanted to be happy and successful. I had to learn to ignore the negative inner voices they imprinted and learn to trust myself. Moreover, I needed to learn that ‘perfect' was never the objective.
At 20, I read Dr. Wayne Dyer's book, Your Erroneous Zones: Step-by-Step Advice for Escaping the Trap of Negative Thinking and Taking Control of Your Life (originally published in 1977). The most important thing I learned from that book was that worry is a completely wasted emotion, i.e. there's no point worrying about stuff that may never happen.
And seriously, what's the worst thing that can happen when you start an Internet business?
Consider these possibilities and their simple solutions:
- You bought a really stupid hyphenated domain name that will never get Google cred and have to buy another? Solution: Suck it up, spend the extra 10 bucks and be happy you learned a branding lesson early. Read my book or join Affiliate Blogger PRO to learn about the stupid domain names I bought in the beginning of my affiliate marketing career AND all of the lessons I learned from those mistakes.
- You waste some money buying into an ‘make money online' program that turns out to be a scam? Solution: Don't spend money that you need for food, shelter and other life necessities on your new business venture.
- You write a post that someone doesn't like and submits a negative and nasty comment. Solution: Accept that those comments will hurt at first, but in time you'll learn to decipher whether you should take heed. Some people are just plain nasty, but others leave valuable clues to how and what you can do better to approach your audience more successfully in future.
The bottom line is that you won't kill anyone if you make a mistake when you start your online business.
You might kill yourself early if you don't deal with your fear of failure, though.
It doesn't matter from whom or how you learned not to trust yourself, the fact is that we as adults must take action to live the life we want to live.
In simple terms, we need to take responsibility, get over the negative influences and move forward.
Whether you're 20, 35, 50 or 75, it's never too late to call ‘bullshit' on ideals foisted upon you before you had the ability to choose to acept or reject those ideals.
It's OK to make mistakes.
In fact, it's good to make mistakes. Mistakes are actually a better teacher than success. Learn from those mistakes and go on.
To succeed, you just need to start. Take one step at a time toward your goal.
Speaking of goals, get the ‘million dollar goal' out of your head.
To succeed, stop thinking or worrying about yourself and start thinking about others and how you can best be of service to them. When you do that, your fears will simply disappear.
Lastly, don't be afraid to ask for help when you need it.
In addition to my mention of Wayne Dyer's book above, there are many excellent, more recently published resources to help you get past your fear of failure – especially from a business perspective – such as:
- Free Your Fear: Making the Leap to Six Figures!
- Losing the Mask: Overcoming the Fear of Failure
- Making Friends with Fear: An Entrepreneur's Guide to Overcoming Fear of Failure, Fear of Being Seen and Other BS Business Beliefs
Did you find this post informative and useful? If so, please share it with others! If you have a comment, question or suggestion, please leave a comment below!
Cheers,
