What would you do if there were no way you could fail? [Discussion]

Submitted by TreatThompson t3_xsytkb in GetMotivated

Standing between the life you have, and the life you want is usually the fear of failure.

We want to cross the bridge, but we don’t think it’s stable.

Some bridges are silly not to cross. It’s short, and if you fall off, it’s a 1-foot drop into a comfy couch.

Like if your dream is to create content online. The worst that can happen is nobody watches—and that’s already happening. It’s all upside.

Other bridges are tricky. The risk of falling is definitely there, but the fall is not as bad as it seems, and you can work to make it safer.

Like starting your own business. We can list a bunch of ways for that to go wrong, but for many, the risk is worth more than the reward.

Tim Ferris fought the fear of failure by “removing the ambiguity.” He describes everything that can go wrong and finds that they’re usually "mere panty pinches on the journey of life” and have a low chance of happening.

He also found that if things go right, the positive effect is more impactful than the potential negative effect.

Ultimately, we have to cross bridges to have a remarkable life. Because life doesn’t get better by itself.

And we need to welcome failure into our lives. Not all ideas are going to work, so getting used to spinning the wheel of fortune after losses is important. If you’re too scared to spin it, you’ll never win.

I always ask myself, “what would I do if I couldn’t fail?” It helps me understand what I want in life. Then I work to disarm my fear of failure from there.

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This post was from my newsletter

I share ideas from great thinkers so we can stand on the shoulders of giants, instead of figuring life out alone

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Comments

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TreatThompson OP t1_iqmxyzy wrote

It makes me think of this quote:

"Fear kills more dreams than failure ever will."—Suzy Kassem

It shows how powerful the fear of failure is.

It also shows that many people don’t get as far as failure killing their dream. They stop at the fear of failure. They give up before they even start. They kill their idea without giving it a fighting chance.

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Old-Necessary t1_iqpe4ch wrote

Cure all curable disease, eliminate poverty and socioeconomic insufficiency, send Putin into outer space and fly him into the sun, kidnap all of the people at the top levels of government in Iran, north Korea and China and strand them all in the middle of a huge desert and make my store look and run great with the products of my learning, hard work, and experience.

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ZenMonkey21 t1_iqqlqss wrote

I’d start my own long only investment fund. If there were not even a little fear of failure though, paradoxically, it would make the whole thing less enjoyable. Go figure

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gardeningb t1_iqqrdo1 wrote

I ran for a state office because my representative was blocking ERA legislation. It was very unlikely I’d win, I didn’t, but I felt I had to do everything in my power to put the ERA in the Constitution. It was a wild, difficult and incredibly important year of my life that continues to have repercussions. I’ve never regretted it.

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