fear of failure essay writing

Bipolar Disorder
Therapy Center
When To See a Therapist
Types of Therapy
Best Online Therapy
Best Couples Therapy
Best Family Therapy
Managing Stress
Sleep and Dreaming
Understanding Emotions
Self-Improvement
Healthy Relationships
Student Resources
Personality Types
Guided Meditations
Verywell Mind Insights
2024 Verywell Mind 25
Mental Health in the Classroom
Editorial Process
Meet Our Review Board
Crisis Support

How to Deal With the Fear of Failure

Kendra Cherry, MS, is a psychosocial rehabilitation specialist, psychology educator, and author of the "Everything Psychology Book."

Rachel Goldman, PhD FTOS, is a licensed psychologist, clinical assistant professor, speaker, wellness expert specializing in eating behaviors, stress management, and health behavior change.

Verywell / Jiaqi Zhou

Characteristics of the Fear of Failure

Identifying

Causes of the Fear of Failure

Treatment for fear of failure, coping with fear of failure.

The fear of failure, also known as atychiphobia , is an irrational and persistent fear of failing. This fear can stem from a number of sources. Sometimes it might emerge in response to a specific situation. In other cases, it might be related to another mental health condition such as anxiety or depression .

The fear of failure may also be related to being a perfectionist . Because perfectionists have such high expectations for how they expect things to turn out, they may experience a nagging fear that they won't live up to those often unrealistically high standards.

This article discusses the signs of a fear of failure and what causes this fear. It also explores treatments that can help and how to prevent this fear from holding you back.

Get Help Now

We've tried, tested, and written unbiased reviews of the best online therapy programs including Talkspace, BetterHelp, and ReGain. Find out which option is the best for you.

A fear of failure can produce emotional and behavioral symptoms. Some of the common signs of this fear include:

Feeling a loss of control
Helplessness
Powerlessness

In addition to emotional and behavioral symptoms, people with a fear of failure may also experience physical symptoms including rapid heart rate, chest tightness, trembling, dizziness, lightheadedness, sweating, and digestive problems.

Identifying the Fear of Failure

The fear of failure may affect people in a variety of ways, which means that it's not always easy to identify. Some of the ways that people may experience the fear of failure include:

Believing that you don't have the skills or knowledge to achieve something
Feeling like you won't be able to achieve your goals
Procrastinating to the point that it affects your performance or ability to finish on time
Telling people that you will probably fail so that expectations remain low
Underestimating your own abilities to avoid feeling let down
Worrying that imperfections or shortcomings will make other people think less of you
Worrying that you will disappoint others if you fail

In some cases, the fear of failure may cause people to avoid trying altogether. Because they are so afraid that they will try and not succeed, they simply decide not to try at all in order to prevent potential pain, embarrassment, or disappointment.

Atychiphobia

While fear of failure is not listed as a distinct condition in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-5) , it is possible that you might be diagnosed with a specific phobia if your symptoms meet certain diagnostic criteria. In order to be diagnosed with a specific phobia, your symptoms must:

Involve excessive and unreasonable fear
Involve an immediate anxiety response
Be marked by avoidance or extreme distress
Limit your ability to function normally
Last as least six months and not be due to another condition

A fear of failure can have a wide variety of causes. Some potential causes include:

Critical Upbringing

People who grow up in households that are highly critical or unsupportive may be more likely to experience a fear of failure. Because they felt that they could never live up to their family's expectations during childhood, they may continue to fear making mistakes as adults.

Definitions of Failure

People often have different definitions of what failure means. For some people, it means not achieving something exactly as they planned. This can create a set of expectations that is very difficult to live up to.

Anxiety is also influenced by genetic factors. If members of your family also have anxiety conditions, you might be more likely to develop fears and anxieties yourself.

Perfectionism

Fear of failure sometimes stems from perfectionism. When people have extremely high standards, it often seems like nothing lives up to their expectations. This includes their own performance and achievements. Because they fear not reaching the high standards they've set, they may experience an intense fear of failing.

People who experienced a difficult or even traumatic failure may also be very afraid of repeating that experience in the future.

Having a panic attack during a presentation or being ridiculed for your performance, for example, could contribute to feelings of fear. Negative consequences resulting from failure, such as losing a job or not getting into a college, can also be risk factors that contribute to the fear of failure.

While everyone may be afraid of failing from time to time, it becomes more serious when it inhibits your ability to pursue your goals and achieve the things you want to accomplish in life.

Impact of the Fear of Failure

A fear of failure can take a toll on a person’s belief in their abilities and their motivation to pursue their goals.

Low self-esteem : People who fear failure may also engage in negative self-talk or have low self-confidence that makes it difficult to pursue goals.
Poor motivation : When people fear failure, they may also experience a lack of motivation that makes it difficult to get started on projects and work toward goals. When something seems too challenging or involves learning new skills, people may simply give up or refuse to get involved.
Self-sabotage : It isn't uncommon for people who fear failure to engage in acts of self-handicapping that undermine their own chances of success. Research has found, for example, that students who fear failing often engage in self-handicapping behaviors that actually limit academic success and perpetuate failure.
Shame : The fear of failure often stems from a fear of experiencing shame or embarrassment. Failing can trigger feelings worthlessness , so avoiding trying in the first place can sometimes serve as a way to protect the self from disappointment, regret, and sadness.

Treatment for the fear of failure depends on a variety of factors including how you experience this fear and the impact that it has on your life. In many cases, people can use self-help strategies to cope with these feelings.

If your fear of failure is impeding your ability to function normally, it is important to talk to a professional. Treatment options for a fear of failure might include:

Psychotherapy

Psychotherapy can help you address the thoughts, emotions, and behaviors that contribute to a fear of failure. Cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) is a type of therapy that helps people identify and change negative thought patterns that contribute to feelings of fear. Mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) may also be helpful.

Medications

Medications may be prescribed to help you manage feelings of anxiety or depression that might be linked to your fear. Selective-serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) are a type of antidepressant that are commonly prescribed to treat mood conditions and anxiety. Anti-anxiety medications, such as Xanax (alprazolam) and Ativan (lorazepam), may also be prescribed.

In many cases, a combination of these two treatment options with lifestyle changes may be the most effective

There are also a number of strategies that you can use to help reduce feelings of fear about failure. Some of these include:

Consider the Outcomes

Sometimes thinking about the worst possible outcome—and then coming up with a plan for how you’ll deal with it—can help reduce anxiety when you are pursuing your goals.

Focus on the Things You Can Control

Instead of worrying about aspects of the situation that you have no power over, focus your energy on things that you can control.

When you are facing a challenge that might trigger your fear of failing, work on developing alternative plans just in case your initial efforts don’t go as planned. Having a plan B (or plan C) can help you feel less anxious and more secure.

Redefine Failure

Changing how you think about failure may also help reduce your feelings of fear. Failure is part of life and can be an important opportunity to learn and acquire new skills.

It can certainly be disappointing, but it is important to maintain a healthy perspective toward the potential benefits of failing from time to time. Remember that success is often reached through a series of progressive failures that lead to new information, skills, and strategies.

Use Positive Thinking

Avoid negative self-talk that can undermine your confidence and create feelings of anxiety. Instead, work on thinking more like an optimist to keep your motivation high.

Visualization May Backfire

While visualization is often touted as a tool for success, research actually shows that this motivational strategy can backfire with people who have a high fear of failure. One study found that people with a strong fear of failing experienced strong negative moods after they engaged in an activity that involved visualizing success.

A Word From Verywell

The fear of failure is something that everyone experiences from time to time, but this can become much more problematic when such feelings become persistent. Practice self-compassion and work on taking small steps toward building your confidence and managing your fears.

American Psychiatric Association. Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders , 5th ed . Washington, DC; 2013.

Meier SM, Deckert J. Genetics of anxiety disorders . Curr Psychiatry Rep . 2019;21(3):16. doi:10.1007/s11920-019-1002-7

Kelly JD 4th. Your best life: Perfectionism--the bane of happiness . Clin Orthop Relat Res . 2015;473(10):3108-11. doi:10.1007/s11999-015-4279-9

Bartels JM, Herman WE. Fear of failure, self-handicapping, and negative emotions in response to failure ; 2011.

Hjeltnes A, Binder PE, Moltu C, Dundas I. Facing the fear of failure: An explorative qualitative study of client experiences in a mindfulness-based stress reduction program for university students with academic evaluation anxiety . Int J Qual Stud Health Well-being . 2015;10:27990. doi:10.3402/qhw.v10.27990

Langens TA. Tantalizing fantasies: positive imagery induces negative mood in individuals high in fear of failure . Imagination, Cognition and Personality . 2002;21(4):281-292. doi:10.2190/HGH6-3RM6-2VCG-YCQH

By Kendra Cherry, MSEd Kendra Cherry, MS, is a psychosocial rehabilitation specialist, psychology educator, and author of the "Everything Psychology Book."

Share full article

How Can I Silence My Fear of Failure When Starting to Write?

“You are likely your own cruelest reader,” says one of our advice columnists.

Rembrandt’s “Portrait of a Scholar” (1631) at the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia. Credit...

Supported by

By Ligaya Mishan

Oct. 23, 2019

In T’s advice column Culture Therapist , either Ligaya Mishan or Megan O’Grady solves your problems using art. Have a question? Need some comfort? Email us at [email protected] .

Q: How do you silence your fear of failure when you start writing something you love very much? — Name Withheld

A: I think the first question is, for you, what is failure? Is it measured by the projected response of a future audience — puzzlement, recoil, sheer indifference — or by the distance between what you envision and what ends up on the page? You are likely your own cruelest reader. (I know I am.) And certainly there are times in the writing process when a cool gimlet eye is required to save us from our worst instincts, but not before you’ve had a chance to start.

The beginning is the worst: the confrontation with blankness, then the awful narrowing of possibilities the moment the words foam up and shrivel. In Ted Chiang’s parable-like short story “The Truth of Fact, the Truth of Feeling,” from his new collection, “ Exhalation ,” a teenager in a preliterate West African village is taught to read and write by a European missionary but finds it impossible to capture the performance of the village’s best storyteller in the new medium:

When Kokwa told the story, he didn’t merely use words; he used the sound of his voice, the movement of his hands, the light in his eyes. He told you the story with his whole body, and you understood it the same way. None of that was captured on paper; only the bare words could be written down. And reading just the words gave you only a hint of the experience of listening to Kokwa himself, as if one were licking the pot in which okra had been cooked instead of eating the okra itself.

In a sense, all literature is literature in translation, inchoate thoughts and feelings shoehorned into awkward-fitting nouns and verbs. It’s somehow comforting to know that before I even start, I’ve already failed! So now I can just get on with it.

Easier said than done, of course. There’s still that chasm between what could be and is, between the sublime and the devastatingly ordinary or downright bad, and the fear of not knowing the difference. Is it any solace to remember that even the greats also suffered dark nights of the soul? When Sergei Rachmaninoff’s first symphony was performed in 1897 in St. Petersburg, Russia, one powerful critic condemned its “broken rhythms” and “complete absence of themes.” (Supposedly the conductor was drunk.) Rachmaninoff sank into despair and didn’t write music for three years. Eventually, he turned to a neurologist-slash-hypnotist, who gently coached him into tackling tiny pieces at first, and then the movements of what would become 1901’s immortal Piano Concerto No. 2 .

As the curator Lisa Le Feuvre has written, “There is a pleasure in failure, and its potential, too.” The 45-story skyscraper known as Torre David ( Tower of David ) was supposed to be the headquarters of a financial hub in Caracas, Venezuela, but the money ran out when the developer died and the country’s economy went under in the 1994 banking crisis. For years, the building was an empty shell, its rooftop helicopter pad forlornly awaiting the bankers who would never come. Then squatters moved into the concrete grid — lack of elevators and plumbing be damned — and transformed it into a small, self-sustaining city with a population of 3,000.

The Trailer for ‘Torre David’ (2013)

Alfredo brillembourg and hubert klumpner’s documentary explores what life was like for the 750 families living in the abandoned 45-story office tower..

This wasn’t an Eden: The head of the “occupation” was a born-again ex-con whom many in the city believed was still running a violent gang. Terraces lacked railings and occasionally children fell to their death. But the squatters found ways to make a home out of the uninhabitable, pooling meager funds to appoint guards at entrances and carrying buckets of water up 28 flights of unlit stairs. Mini bodegas sprang up, along with a beauty salon, an ad hoc video-game arcade and an unlicensed dentist’s office. Then, in 2014, the residents were evicted by the government; the tower stands empty once more. You can see something of the lives once led there in the 2012 book “ Torre David: Informal Vertical Communities ” and an accompanying 2013 documentary film by the architects Alfredo Brillembourg and Hubert Klumpner, of the Caracas-based Urban-Think Tank, and the photographer Iwan Baan .

Now, on some level, all of this is distraction from the task at hand. There’s no getting around it: Writing is a white-knuckle business. In the 2009 novel “ The Anthologist ,” Nicholson Baker describes how the clearing of space around a poem exacts a promise of a high-wire act, and I sometimes think of it when staring down an empty page, because the (intentional) portentousness makes me laugh and take myself ever so slightly less seriously:

Rumble, rumble, stand back now, this is going to be good. Here the magician will do his thing. Here’s the guy who’s going to eat razor blades. Or pour gasoline in his mouth and spout it out. Or lie on a bed of broken glass. … This is the blank white playing field of Eton.

It’s useful, then, to watch an actual high-wire act, as shown in James Marsh’s 2008 film “ Man on Wire ,” a documentary about the French funambule (tightrope walker) Philippe Petit and his dance across a cable illicitly strung between the towers of the World Trade Center in downtown Manhattan in 1974. He was a graffitist of the air, seemingly beyond fear; one misstep and — but how lucky we are, that we can just erase our terrible words and start over.

Explore T Magazine

Redefining Minimalism: A new generation of Black female artists is finding creative freedom by making rigorously pared-down work.

From Novelist to Pop Star: In fiction, Ali Sethi wrote about being queer in Pakistan. Now he’s singing his story .

A Philip Johnson House Reopens: Following an extensive restoration, the Brick House , the other half of the architect’s famous Glass House, is once again receiving visitors.

The Spirit That Guides Betye Saar: The 97-year-old artist’s newest works reflect her decades-long interest in cultural artifacts and self-emancipation .

Mountain Homes in Ecuador: A group of architects is creating disjointed structures that, in response to their unsteady terrain, are a new model in cooperative building.

Essay on Fear of Failure

Students are often asked to write an essay on Fear of Failure in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

Let’s take a look…

100 Words Essay on Fear of Failure

Understanding fear of failure.

Fear of failure is a common feeling that arises when we face a challenge. It’s a fear that we might not succeed, which can stop us from trying at all.

Effects of Fear

This fear can limit our potential. It can prevent us from taking risks, stunting our growth and development.

Overcoming the Fear

Overcoming this fear involves understanding that failure is a part of learning. We can grow from our mistakes, turning them into stepping stones towards success.

Also check:

Speech on Fear of Failure

250 Words Essay on Fear of Failure

Introduction.

Fear of failure, or atychiphobia, is a psychological condition where an individual has a persistent, irrational dread of not meeting expectations or achieving success. This fear can be paralyzing, often leading to procrastination, anxiety, and a decrease in performance.

The Psychology of Fear

The fear of failure is deeply rooted in our psyche, often stemming from early life experiences. It is reinforced by societal pressures to succeed and the stigma attached to failure. The dread of not meeting expectations, coupled with the potential for public humiliation, can lead to debilitating anxiety.

Impact on Personal and Academic Life

This fear can significantly impact one’s personal and academic life. It can hinder risk-taking, creativity, and exploration, all of which are crucial for personal growth and academic success. Students may avoid challenging tasks, limiting their potential and stifling their intellectual development.

Overcoming the fear of failure involves a shift in perspective. Viewing failure as an opportunity for learning and growth, rather than a negative outcome, can help mitigate these fears. Strategies such as cognitive-behavioral therapy, mindfulness, and exposure therapy can also be effective.

In conclusion, the fear of failure is a profound issue that can inhibit personal and academic progress. However, with the right mindset and therapeutic strategies, it is possible to overcome this fear, fostering resilience and promoting success.

500 Words Essay on Fear of Failure

Fear of failure, also known as atychiphobia, is a complex emotion that can significantly impact an individual’s life. It is characterized by an overwhelming dread or anxiety about making mistakes or not meeting expectations. This fear can lead to avoidance of challenges and opportunities, thereby stifling personal growth and achievement. Understanding the nature, causes, and consequences of this fear is essential to overcoming it and achieving one’s full potential.

The Nature of Fear of Failure

Fear of failure is not just about the dread of not succeeding. It is often tied to deeper issues such as the fear of criticism, the fear of disappointing others, and the fear of losing one’s self-esteem. It can manifest itself in various forms, such as procrastination, perfectionism, and self-sabotage. These manifestations can lead to a vicious cycle where the fear of failure results in behaviors that, in turn, increase the likelihood of failure.

Causes of Fear of Failure

The root causes of fear of failure are often traced back to early life experiences. Negative feedback or punishment for failures during childhood can lead to the development of this fear. Societal and parental expectations can also contribute to its growth. Furthermore, internal factors such as personality traits and cognitive biases can make some individuals more susceptible to this fear.

Consequences of Fear of Failure

The fear of failure can have far-reaching consequences. It can limit an individual’s willingness to take on new challenges, stifle creativity, and hinder personal and professional growth. It can also lead to chronic stress and mental health issues such as anxiety and depression. Moreover, it can impact relationships, as the fear of disappointing others can lead to avoidance of social interactions.

Overcoming Fear of Failure

Overcoming the fear of failure involves acknowledging and understanding the fear, reframing failure, and fostering a growth mindset. Acknowledging the fear is the first step towards overcoming it. This can involve introspection or seeking professional help. Reframing failure involves viewing it not as a negative outcome but as a learning opportunity. This shift in perspective can reduce the fear associated with failure. Lastly, fostering a growth mindset, a concept popularized by psychologist Carol Dweck, can help individuals view challenges as opportunities for learning and growth rather than threats to their self-worth.

Fear of failure is a pervasive issue that can significantly limit an individual’s potential. However, with understanding, self-reflection, and a shift in mindset, it is possible to overcome this fear. By reframing failure as a stepping stone to success and fostering a growth mindset, individuals can turn their fear of failure into a powerful motivator for personal and professional growth.

That’s it! I hope the essay helped you.

If you’re looking for more, here are essays on other interesting topics:

Essay on My Favourite Subject
Essay on My Favorite Subject English
Essay on Favorite Subject

Apart from these, you can look at all the essays by clicking here .

Happy studying!

Atychiphobia, or the Fear of Failure in Psychology Essay

Not a single person in this world can say that they were not afraid to fail, especially when a goal was desirable and important to them. In this case, being afraid is normal, and no one can judge another person for this feeling. However, in some instances, the feeling grows overwhelming and paralyzing, remaining with an individual for the rest of their life. This constant condition is referred to as the fear of failure.

Speaking more scientifically, it is known as atychiphobia (Sebetlela, 2017). The initial point of the condition is a one-time negative fear-based emotion, but as fear grows stronger, an individual cannot cope with it, so the feeling becomes powerful and controls the further life of the person. From this perspective, what was one an insignificant intimidation – that close to being unconfident – may evolve to become a paralyzing feeling that dictates the rules of play and keeps the person away from controlling and enjoying their life and realizing their aspirations due to the permanent fear of failure, unless treated in a timely and appropriate manner.

To begin with and to understand the influence of the fear of failure on an individual’s life, it is essential to understand what stands behind this concept. Atychiphobia, or the fear of failure, is the irrational feeling – even confidence – that the desirable result of one’s effort will never be achieved. This feeling is abnormal and commonly persistent. Its foundation is anxiety. However, it is connected to the very desirable outcome of actions or choices as well as the negative self-perception.

In this case, it is critical to note that the fear of failure is associated with the belief that not only an individual will fail but also other people, especially the closest one as well as the whole society, will judge or criticize them for this failure (Sebetlela, 2017). Putting it simply, the fear of failure is the incapability to suppress the anxious and irrational feeling of fear that, as a result, affects one’s life (Appling, 2013).

This psychological issue was discovered by John Atkinson in the 1960s. During conducting an experiment aimed at estimating children’s motivation, he found out that there are always two kinds of people: those focusing on rewards and those being afraid of failure. It is essential to note that all of the tasks offered to children were based on rewards. However, some kids perceived them as a way to indeed obtain a reward upon completing one, while others were confident that they would fail.

Therefore, those children belonging to the first group were willing to be rewarded for their achievements, while those from the second were eager to avoid humiliation for their inevitable failure. The first phenomenon was labeled as the need for achievement, while the second became referred to as the fear of failure (Kelsey, 2012).

Before reviewing the influence of the fear of failure on an individual’s life and chances of success and happiness, it is critical to point to the fact that the challenge is commonly associated with the external environment, not only the internal one, as mentioned above. In this way, atychiphobia is pathological in its nature. It means that the earlier the failure, the higher the risks of the development of this condition.

It usually refers to pathological families in which parents do not support their children, thus making the kids think that they do not have talents or are going to fail every single of their beginnings. As a child grows up, this fear turns into an integral part of their personality and makes it impossible for them to understand their identity in a positive way, thus having a devastating influence on their life. Nevertheless, family is not the only source of emotional trauma. Being bullied by peers can as well lead to the emergence of the fear of failure, but the impact of this matter of concern is less significant if a child is supported by their family (Kocchar, 2016).

As for parents’ support, it should be viewed in two ways. The first one stands for extremely high demands, especially if a child does not have a talent for a particular kind of activities. For instance, parents want a daughter to go in for ballet, but she cannot cope with the volume of exercises, so, as a result, fails to become a ballet dancer. In this case, the lack of support – for instance, pointing to her failure in ballet without offering alternatives for realizing her potential and demonstrating talents – is a common ground for the development of the fear of failure.

On the other hand, there is a contrary situation. Assume that a boy does have a particular talent – for example, beautiful voice. However, the boy cannot become a winner of singing competitions. Therefore, instead of pointing to a significant progress when winning the second place, parents focus on his incapability to become the winner. As a result, the outcome is the same – the increased risks of atychiphobia when becoming an adult.

At the same time, it is critical to point to the fact that these extremely high expectations are commonly brought by kids to their adult life. Returning to the experiment conducted by John Atkinson, he found out that those interested in rewards for completing a particular task always set achievable objectives. On the other hand, those with a distinctive fear of failure were not objective in estimating their resources and potential and set goals that were an initially obvious failure. Because setting a high standard – significantly higher than the achievable one – the fear of failure, as well as the failure itself, is a logical consequence of such a behavior (Kelsey, 2012).

Now, as the essence and roots of the problem are clear, it is paramount to speculate on the impact of atychiphobia on a person. In general, there are several ways of seeing the influence of the fear of failure on an individuals’ life, but none of them is positive. Still, all of them have a common ground – a belief that the potential failure is real and, what is even more critical, intense, so nothing can be done to cope with it. As a result, the logical outcome of such an inner state is the subconscious undermining of an individual’s talents, positive character traits, and areas of personal strengths that has a devastating impact on their life and activities.

The first way to understand the criticality of the fear of failure in one’s life is to review it through the prism of choosing to do what one does not want to or love doing. It is associated with the unwillingness to be responsible for one’s life choices and doing what other people tell to, for instance, parents or elder relatives, because they are more experienced, thus may dictate the rules of play to others. In real life, this choice stands for being unconfident in one’s potential as well as being afraid not only to change life circumstance and do what one loves to but also stand out and protect oneself against others’ judging and imposing their opinions regarding what is right or wrong (Appling, 2013).

To support this statement, think of educational or hobby choices most children commonly make. They listen to their parents when selecting colleges and professions, and, as a result, feel dissatisfied. However, in most cases, people do know what they are interested in, but they are afraid of making the desired changes or opposing their parents. That being said, they end up feeling misfits and do not get engaged in new activities.

Another common way to perceive the role of the fear of failure is taking no risks. It is closely associated with the first manifestation of atychiphobia, but, in some cases, no external influence is involved. In this case, the main challenge is the very fact that an individual is afraid to withdraw themselves from the comfort zone. It means that regardless of possessing a significant potential for turning a dream into reality, a person does not want to because they are afraid that they will screw everything up and end in a failure (Chawla, 2016).

This case is connected to numerous instances of being afraid to switch jobs, create a family, break up with an abusive partner, and get involved in a new hobby. Just like in the case of the first demonstration of the fear of failure, the impact on one’s emotional wellbeing is crucial due to a prevailing sense of discomfort and significant self-esteem issues.

In addition to choosing to remain in one’s comfort zone or continue doing what a person does not want or love to, the fear of failure is commonly related to choosing to take no actions. Simply speaking, it results in procrastination. The common ground for the emergence of this challenge is being dissatisfied with one’s current position on life, but still feeling intimidated by the slightest opportunities to change it.

As a result, a person may choose to procrastinate – get engaged in unimportant activities in order to avoid the activities to oppose failure in the current position due to being not interested in it. The logic is the following: if a person does nothing, the risks of screwing everything up are minimal. This example is a bright manifestation of the fear of failure in education, especially in the case of first-generation students – those who come from the families that never obtained college degrees. Being afraid of failing to meet their parents’ expectations, somehow first-generation students choose to procrastinate, not even realizing that procrastination is as well associated with failure (Belde, 2016; Stuart, 2013).

All of the abovementioned manifestations of the fear of failure are insignificant compared to the last perspective on viewing the impact of atychiphobia on one’s personal development and life – becoming totally isolated from society. This matter of concern is especially critical in case of people coming from vulnerable families – those with a particular social and economic background. Somehow, they are already isolated by their community.

However, they may make effort to cope with the issue and become integrated into the society. Nevertheless, the fear of failure – feeling intimidated by the impossibility of creating effective social bonds – greatly affects their desire to break out of the vicious cycle of vulnerability, thus making them completely isolated and engaged in completing routine tasks without making effort tot change their life. In addition, this case is commonly connected to one’s comfort with extremely low ambitions. It is essential to state that even though this one may be discomforting emotionally, it stands for the decreased risks of failure because no real steps are taken to initiate at least minimal changes in one’s life.

Still, some may argue that there is a positive aspect of the fear of failure – stability. Because one chooses to remain where they are, especially when a current position is socially and economically beneficial, the condition may indeed be associated with stability. However, in this case, there is a question: how is economic and social stability beneficial in case of emotional discomfort and procrastination or other manifestations of the fear of failure?

From this perspective, the positivity of this psychological condition is vague, as the negative aspects and consequences of the fear of failure outweigh the insignificant and relative positive outcomes of the phenomenon. It can be explained by one simple fact – this stability is nothing more than an illusion – illusion of comfort and welfare – because low ambitions are rarely associated with positive changes in one’s life, and inferior stability is a questionable benefit.

That being said, the fear of failure is commonly associated with never starting to realize one’s potential and living a dream. There are numerous causes of the emergence of this psychological condition, as well as different manifestations and consequences of atychiphobia. However, the two main features are the following:

it devastates an individual’s life making them feel unconfident, unhappy, and depressed and
it derives from the inability to cope with the imperfections of a person’s internal and external environment. From this perspective, it is possible to prevent the emergence of this complicated emotional condition.

However, to achieve this objective, significant effort – both internal and external – is essential. For instance, supporting one’s child in realizing their potential and not limiting them in choosing hobbies and education is the initial contribution to preventing and even coping with the fear of failure. Making the focus on finding one’s unique talent and recognizing authenticity – either with the help of others or by oneself – is another possible way to address the challenge and avoid its devastating impact on a person’s life. Finally, working thoroughly and persistently to determine achievable and real-life objectives is one more strategy to avoid the development of atychiphobia.

From this perspective, it is possible to minimize the risks of the overall life deterioration by limiting the evolution of a small intimidation into a persistent and anxious condition – the fear of failure. However, being unwilling to do so is connected to a moral paralysis due to the inability of getting away from the vicious cycle of atychiphobia and becoming used to losing control over one’s life and dreams and the ability to live every day to its fullest because of low ambitions, the sense of fear, and issues related to low self-esteem.

Appling, M. (2013). Overcoming your fear of failure: A portion from life after art. Chicago, IL: Moody Publishers.

Belde, M. (2016). The ultimate stress-free productivity secrets: Get better in business, life and relationships. Chennai, India: Notion Press.

Chawla, Y. V. (2016). The Fear of Failure. New York, NY: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform.

Kelsey. R. (2012). Is fear of failure holding you back? Web.

Kocchar, A. (2016). The failure of project: The story of man’s greatest fear. Mumbai, India: Body & Soul Books.

Sebetlela, M. (2017). Fear of failure: How to overcome it (2nd ed.). Seattle, WA: Amazon Digital Services LLC.

Stuart, B. M. (2013). The relation of fear of failure, procrastination, and self-efficacy to academic success in college for first and non-first-generation students in a private non-selective institution. Tuscaloosa, AL: University of Alabama Libraries.

Chicago (A-D)
Chicago (N-B)

IvyPanda. (2024, April 30). Atychiphobia, or the Fear of Failure in Psychology. https://ivypanda.com/essays/atychiphobia-or-the-fear-of-failure-in-psychology/

"Atychiphobia, or the Fear of Failure in Psychology." IvyPanda , 30 Apr. 2024, ivypanda.com/essays/atychiphobia-or-the-fear-of-failure-in-psychology/.

IvyPanda . (2024) 'Atychiphobia, or the Fear of Failure in Psychology'. 30 April.

IvyPanda . 2024. "Atychiphobia, or the Fear of Failure in Psychology." April 30, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/atychiphobia-or-the-fear-of-failure-in-psychology/.

1. IvyPanda . "Atychiphobia, or the Fear of Failure in Psychology." April 30, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/atychiphobia-or-the-fear-of-failure-in-psychology/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "Atychiphobia, or the Fear of Failure in Psychology." April 30, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/atychiphobia-or-the-fear-of-failure-in-psychology/.

Realizing the Emerging Importance of Recycling
Humanist Psychology, Cognitive Psychology and Positive Psychology
Overcoming Fear of Failure
Positive Psychology to Understand the Elderly Population
Lee Kuan Yew's Life in "Wild Psychoanalysis"
Loneliness in Adolescence as a Psychological Issue
Burnout, Compassion Fatigue and Stress at Workplace
Manufactured Beauty: Cindy Jackson Example

Entertainment
Environment
Information Science and Technology
Social Issues

Home Essay Samples Life Courage

Dealing with the Fear of Failure

Fear of failure stops forward movement.

*minimum deadline

Cite this Essay

To export a reference to this article please select a referencing style below

Being Yourself
Never Give Up

Related Essays

Need writing help?

You can always rely on us no matter what type of paper you need

*No hidden charges

100% Unique Essays

Absolutely Confidential

Money Back Guarantee

By clicking “Send Essay”, you agree to our Terms of service and Privacy statement. We will occasionally send you account related emails

You can also get a UNIQUE essay on this or any other topic

Thank you! We’ll contact you as soon as possible.

SUGGESTED TOPICS
The Magazine
Newsletters
Managing Yourself
Managing Teams
Work-life Balance
The Big Idea
Data & Visuals
Reading Lists
Case Selections
HBR Learning
Topic Feeds
Account Settings
Email Preferences

How to Overcome Your Fear of Failure

Susan Peppercorn

Think about what may happen if you do nothing.

People are quick to blame themselves for failure. But not doing something because you’re afraid to get started isn’t going to help you grow. Here are four strategies to help you get over the hump. Start by redefining what failure means to you. If you define failure as the discrepancy between what you hope to achieve (such as getting a job offer) and what you might achieve (learning from the experience), you can focus on what you learned, which helps you recalibrate for future challenges. It’s also important to set approach goals instead of avoidance goals: focus on what you want to achieve rather than what you want to avoid. Creating a “fear list” can also help. This is a list of what may not happen as a result of your fear — the cost of inaction. And finally, focus on learning. The chips aren’t always going to fall where you want them to — but if you expect that reality going into an event, you can be prepared to wring the most value out of whatever outcome.

A client (who I’ll call “Alex”) asked me to help him prepare to interview for a CEO role with a start-up. It was the first time he had interviewed for the C-level, and when we met, he was visibly agitated. I asked what was wrong, and he explained that he felt “paralyzed” by his fear of failing at the high-stakes meeting.

Susan Peppercorn is an executive career transition coach and speaker. She is the author of Ditch Your Inner Critic at Work: Evidence-Based Strategies to Thrive in Your Career. Numerous publications including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Fast Company, the Boston Globe, and SELF Magazine have tapped her for career advice. You can download her free Career Fit Self-Assessment and 25 Steps to a Successful Career Transition .

Partner Center

Craft and Criticism
Fiction and Poetry
News and Culture
Lit Hub Radio
Reading Lists

Literary Criticism
Craft and Advice
In Conversation
On Translation
Short Story
From the Novel
Bookstores and Libraries
Film and TV
Art and Photography
Freeman’s
The Virtual Book Channel
Behind the Mic
Beyond the Page
The Cosmic Library
The Critic and Her Publics
Emergence Magazine
Fiction/Non/Fiction
First Draft: A Dialogue on Writing
The History of Literature
I’m a Writer But
Lit Century
Tor Presents: Voyage Into Genre
Windham-Campbell Prizes Podcast
Write-minded
The Best of the Decade
Best Reviewed Books
BookMarks Daily Giveaway
The Daily Thrill
CrimeReads Daily Giveaway

Demystifying the Writer’s Fear of Failure

Sarah labrie on why writing is supposed to be difficult.

Writing well is hard. All writers know this. So why don’t we talk about it more? But we do, I hear you groan. All writers do is complain. Well, true. But it’s also true that most of that complaining comes after said writer has achieved some modicum of success. The back pages of the Best American Short Stories anthologies, for example, are replete with different versions of one tale told over and over: facing constant rejection, a writer wrestles with the prospect of giving up, then a phone call comes at the last minute, telling her that everything she’s ever dreamed of is suddenly about to take place.

When the prospect of failure lies just over the horizon, we don’t like talking about our unfinished drafts, rejected submissions, or impossible-to-fix manuscripts quite as much. The well intentioned rejections from literary magazines and the “no” emails from agents—sure, they make great dinner party fodder after pub day, but not when we’re still waiting for somebody, anybody, to recognize our hard work. Even in this, the era of “fail fast and fail often,” for many writers, to admit to not having gotten there yet feels like acknowledging the very real possibility that we might not ever get there at all.

Which is, in some sense, ridiculous. No one expects a medical student to perform surgery correctly on his first try. And no corporate lawyer would be allowed to negotiate a merger without experience and years of law school behind her. Lawyers and doctors learn by doing. Writers feel we should already know. Proust never got an MFA. Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein at twenty. Helen Oyeyemi wrote her first novel while she was still at Cambridge. And it’s not as if we’re the only people telling ourselves this. As the writer Tim Parks once put it in an essay for the New York Review of Books , “No one is treated with more patronizing condescension than the unpublished author or, in general, the would-be artist. At best he is commiserated. At worst mocked. He has presumed to rise above others and failed.”

Ambition is a delicate thing, and being mocked, condescended to, or, worse, pitied, feels bad. But I think we do ourselves a serious disservice by not talking more openly about what failing at writing feels like. By this, I mean the physical feeling of writing badly: the instinct that tells you when a prepositional phrase is wrenching your sentence in the wrong direction; the sense that comes upon a writer all at once that her entire career has beached itself upon a handful of paragraphs she just can’t order correctly; the feeling that settles upon her, even as she hits “send” on a manuscript, that she just hasn’t gotten it right, and that perhaps she never will.

That’s why I was pleased, a few years ago, to hear the poet and academic Anne Carson, in conversation with Bookworm host Michael Silverblatt, speak honestly about her book, Red Doc . The novel, the sequel to Carson’s much loved Autobiography of Red , was highly anticipated and had already received heaps of critical praise and attention. Of it, Carson said the following:

Yeah, I mean, I don’t love it at all. I just…did it because I had determined to. And I don’t think I even admire it—I shouldn’t say that because of course it will cut down sales—but I can’t think of a way I could have done this that would have seemed right at the end. It was just a matter of getting through it.

Silverblatt expresses astonishment, saying to Carson, “I think it’s not uncommon that a writer regards a particular work as an agony. Something to have been gotten through. But I have to tell you, this is the first time anyone has ever said so. I think that’s amazingly honest.”

“Oh darn,” Carson responds. “I did it again.”

On the one hand, this hesitance on the part of writers to speak about the difficulty of what we do makes sense. Writers aren’t surgeons, and the hardships we face can, in the greater scheme of things, feel unimportant. Our friends and families are certainly tired of hearing about our issues, so why would we share them with strangers? If writing proves too difficult, we can always just give up and get real jobs, right? Too, this type of talk just adds more depressing substance to the conversation around an already depressing industry, one that’s riddled with failure, rejection, budget cuts, underpaid adjuncting and publishing assistant jobs, and books ghostwritten for Internet celebrities getting all the attention while everyone else slowly starves.

For me, developing a regular writing practice in graduate school and after proved painful and elusive. I strained for months and years over pieces that would never see publication, while all my best stories tended to be completed in a matter of hours or in an afternoon. When writing those stories—the ones that eventually got published or caught the attention of editors and agents—I had a sense of having been carried by some type of wave that, once the work was finished, deposited me back on shore and disappeared without a trace. The stretches in between those waves were marked by terrible writing, weight gain, stress-related hair loss, and random crying.

Never in any of my fiction workshops, in college, in graduate school, or beyond, was the cyclical and mercurial nature of this process, and the physical, mental, and social damage it could cause, ever mentioned. I wish it had been. It wouldn’t have stopped me writing, but it would have made me feel less alone, less certain that at some point down the line it would simply not be worth it anymore, and that I would have to give up.

Now, when I teach, I assign my students the Paris Review interviews—that magazine’s series of lengthy in-person discussions with famous writers—for every author we read. I have my students read James Baldwin’s famous essay “Stranger in the Village,” in all its abundant lyricism, alongside the conversation in which he calls writing “a terrible way to make a living,” adding, “I find writing gets harder as time goes on. I’m speaking of the working process, which demands a certain amount of energy and courage. . .and a certain amount of recklessness. I don’t know, I doubt whether anyone—myself at least—knows how to talk about writing. Perhaps I’m afraid to.”

Rather than finding these words depressing, my students tend to find some measure of relief in an understanding that everyone, even Baldwin, struggled. I also have them read relevant entries from Susan Sontag’s journals (“My will is more flabby than it’s ever been before. Let this be the dip before the upswing”) or Franz Kafka’s (“That I have put aside and crossed out so much, indeed almost everything I wrote this year, that hinders me a great deal in writing”). My personal favorite is a June 1910 diary entry of Kafka’s, which begins, in his characteristically upbeat tone, “slept, awoke, slept, awoke, miserable life.” All of these lines appear in pages composed before these authors became household names or had any concept that they would be, when they were simply struggling towards the creation of work that was meaningful to them.

What I want to do with my students is to demystify the process. To show them, as I wish someone had shown me when I was very young, that writers aren’t gods alone in a room, pumping out perfectly metered prose from the time they sit down at their desks until it’s time to go down to the bar. Writing is a lot of frustrating, hard work completed over time. Whether you’re good at it or talented winds up mattering less, in the end, than the ability to keep doing it, even in the face of your own pain and the world’s potential apathy.

We’re embarrassed to talk about the difficulty of writing, but we shouldn’t be. Writing is supposed to be hard. It’s good that it’s difficult. Eating. Sleeping. Being on the Internet. Watching television. These gestures of passive consumption come easily to most of us for a reason. The difficulty of writing well is a key element of its importance. If it isn’t difficult, at least at first, there’s a genuine possibility that it’s not being done very well.

A more pertinent question might be: why do writers continue to write at all? A professor of mine once said that it’s because we don’t want to die. I used to think there was something to that, but now I think it has more to do with what happens on the flip side of writing badly, by which I mean the series of clicks that happen when the words fall onto the page exactly the way they’re supposed to, the pleasant, low-level madness that starts to take hold when the work is going well, when coincidences abound and everything anyone says takes on a greater significance, the whole world bathed in light.

At the same time, it’s possible that the answer is something simpler, and that Kafka landed on it in his journals many years before I did: “The burning electric light, the silent house, the darkness outside, the last waking moments, they give me right to write even if it be only the most miserable stuff. And this right I use hurriedly. That’s the person I am.”

__________________________________

Share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
Click to share on Google+ (Opens in new window)
Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)
Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window)
Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window)
Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)
Click to share on Pocket (Opens in new window)

Sarah LaBrie

Previous article, next article, support lit hub..

Join our community of readers.

to the Lithub Daily

Follow us on Twitter

Leah Vernon: A Day in the Life of a Fat Model

RSS - Posts

Literary Hub

Created by Grove Atlantic and Electric Literature

How to Pitch Lit Hub

Advertisers: Contact Us

Support Lit Hub - Become A Member

Become a Lit Hub Supporting Member : Because Books Matter

For the past decade, Literary Hub has brought you the best of the book world for free—no paywall. But our future relies on you. In return for a donation, you’ll get an ad-free reading experience , exclusive editors’ picks, book giveaways, and our coveted Joan Didion Lit Hub tote bag . Most importantly, you’ll keep independent book coverage alive and thriving on the internet.

Become a member for as low as $5/month

The Writing Center • University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Fear of Criticism and Failure

By a Graduate Student

Once upon a time, I had to defend the “prospectus” or plan for my dissertation to my committee members. I spent many months researching, drafting, and revising my prospectus. I focused on making my ideas clear. I memorized the main points of my argument. When my prospectus defense began, I shared with excitement everything I had learned and planned to do. And the first question a committee member asked me in response was: “So… what’s your dissertation about?”

My stomach sank. For the next ninety minutes, I had to endure severe comment after severe comment on how undeveloped and—to my ears—stupid my ideas were. It did not feel like they were just objectively addressing my “writing.” It felt like they were personally addressing me (as a writer).

Receiving such harsh criticism not only made me feel like a failure, it also made me afraid to write later on in fear of receiving more harsh criticism and failing again . How did I deal with (and continue to deal with) the sometimes hurtful realities of academic writing? Not by making my research and writing any less personal to me but by keeping in mind a few mottos that have greatly informed my approach to academia, in general, and academic writing, in particular :

1. “Wisdom lies in taking everything with good humor and a grain of salt.” — George Santayana

Weekly schedule for Ph. D. Student . All days are checked off except for Saturday, which is labeled "DO NOTHING!!!"

After my prospectus defense, I did not want to look at or even think about anything I had written. I put my dissertation completely out of my mind for a few days—which was the most helpful and useful action I could have taken. When I eventually returned to my dissertation, I discovered that I could think about all the criticism I had received more rationally and less emotionally . I had a clear-eyed perspective on my committee members’ comments about the shortcomings in my work. I recognized that my committee members were experts on the subjects that I wanted to study and could see some of the faults in my ideas that they were bringing to light. And even if there were certain comments that I still did not agree with, I could accept that—for the most part—their criticisms about my ideas were based upon their own past experiences as early-career scholars who received (possibly harsh) criticism from their committee members.

And more than being able to develop a strategy for revising my dissertation, I could look back at my prospectus meeting with a sense of irony. Yes, my research is meaningful to me. Yes, my writing is deeply personal to me. But the idea of a group of people huddled together in a small room discussing the intricacies of academic scholarship was nothing if not humorous to me. I learned that even though sticks and stones and words could definitely hurt me, I could now look back at that (painful) memory with a smirk instead of a frown. I could think about the criticism I received with good humor and a grain of salt.

2. “Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art…It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things which give value to survival.” — C. S. Lewis

Texts between writer and a colleague about life in the PhD program and progress on the writer's dissertation chapter.

I have found as a graduate student that the difference between a “friend” and a “colleague” can make the difference between succumbing to or surviving the sometimes brutal realities of academia and academic writing. Simply having a friend in my program who I could talk with about the difficulties I faced in my prospectus defense—and any other aspects of our graduate degree program—was more valuable to me than hypothetically receiving advice and guidance from the most prestigious scholar imaginable. When I talk to people in my program who I consider to be both colleagues and friends, we discuss more than just our ideas and writing. We also share with each other about the personal realities of being a graduate student! Whether talking in-person at a coffee shop or texting late at night while editing a dissertation chapter, the conversations I’ve had with fellow travelers in my program have been invaluable to my survival as a graduate student.

3. “It is easy for us to lose ourselves in details in endeavoring to grasp and comprehend the real condition of a mass of human beings. We often forget that each unit in the mass is a throbbing human soul.” — W. E. B. Du Bois

Writer's post-meeting action plan. List includes time for self-care and reading/responding to feedback.

From my many different experiences as an undergraduate student, high school teacher, graduate student, and graduate instructor, here’s the most important lesson I’ve learned: the well-being of myself and my students come before any academic assignment, project, or degree. I want to succeed as a graduate student—for more than just the prospect of a good job or financial security. I want to succeed in my graduate program because I believe in the ideas that I research and write about. But I’ve learned that simple decisions such as taking off a weekend in order to spend time with family and friends are key for me to maintain a healthy mental and emotional state. I no longer think that spending a Saturday away from my books and laptop makes me a “bad” student. For even if the world of academia still contains for me infinite possibilities for exploring who we are and how our society came to be, I believe first and foremost that I am a human soul whose worth could never be measured by any dissertation or degree.

This blog showcases the perspectives of UNC Chapel Hill community members learning and writing online. If you want to talk to a Writing and Learning Center coach about implementing strategies described in the blog, make an appointment with a writing coach or an academic coach today. Have an idea for a blog post about how you are learning and writing remotely? Contact us here .

8 Bold Ways to Overcome Your Fear of Writing

by Sarah Gribble | 0 comments

Want to Become a Published Author? In 100 Day Book, you’ll finish your book guaranteed. Learn more and sign up here.

Today I want to talk about fear. Fear of writing, fear of sharing your work, fear of publishing—and how you can overcome it.

Writers face fear on a day-to-day basis.

The self-doubt . The fear of failure. And, oh, the vulnerability.

Writing is hard enough with all the self-evaluation and doubt about your abilities. But then sharing your work with other people so they can critique or review it? CRINGE.

When you sink into that fear it debilitates you. If you let fear hold you back, you’re ensuring you never achieve your goals. You’ll never write that book and you’ll never get published. All because you were too scared.

8 Ways to Overcome Your Fear of Writing

It’s time to stop letting fear control you and get writing. Here’s how:

1. Do what scares you.

When you’re up against something that makes you cringe, ask yourself what the worst-case scenario is. Is it actually harmful? Unless it’s something like jumping from a bridge into a rocky river or stepping in front of a speeding vehicle, it’s probably not.

Fear is trying to keep you safe. It needs to learn that just because something is scary doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s detrimental to your health. Do what scares you, and keep doing it, and the fear will subside.

This includes fear of our own writing. I'm not saying you have to go write a 90,000 word novel. Start with a short story, or try out some writing prompts.

Aspiring writers might feel intiimdated because they don't think that they are a great writer. The reality is, you can never become a great writer unless you practice—and to practice, you have to write.

Embrace and overcome your fear by putting words down. Start writing, have patience with yourself, and worry about the rest later.

The blank page becomes way less scary as soon as you put words on it.

2. Stop procrastinating.

Your house is already clean enough. That TV show can wait. No, you don’t need to run to the store to pick up a bag of chips.

Figure out when the best time for you to write is and then write.

If you really, truly need a break to clear your mind, set a time limit. Ten minutes of scrubbing the grout with a toothbrush and then get back to your writing.

Ultimately, those who procrastinate will be more prone to writing off procrastination as writer's block—and the more time you spend away from writing, the scary it will become.

3. Learn from criticism.

Criticism is what everyone fears. Not just in writing, but in life. We all want to be liked, to be perfect, to be praised.

Your writing will not please everyone and that’s something you should realize and accept now. Criticism is much easier to take when you go into it knowing that fact.

Don’t just ignore criticism, though. Writing is like everything else in that it requires practice. You don't have to rank #1 on Amazon or make a bestseller list your first go (even though I won't argue that would be fantastic).

The first meal you cooked wasn’t a gourmet meal. The first time you dribbled a basketball wasn’t Lebron-level. Someone was there to point out what you were doing wrong and set you on the right path. They taught you how to get better.

That’s what criticism is: teaching.

It's not rejecting your work, which might be why some writers fail to share their work: because their fear of rejection is mistakenly associated with getting critiques.

Yes, sometimes it’s mean-spirited, especially in this age of internet trolls. But even in those nasty reviews, there’s normally something to learn from.

Find it. Use it. And do better next time.

4. Stop revising.

You want every sentence in your work to be perfect . I have a secret for you: you’ll never get there.

Your writing will never be perfect.

Not to you, not to your editors, and not to your readers. It’s impossible, so stop revising ad nauseam. At some point, you have to let it go and put the work out there.

Perfectionism can stunt your creative writing instead of empower it.

To avoid this, set a limit. I prefer three drafts. That’s it. Three and then I let it fly on its own.

What are you writing for? We'll never know unless you decide to share your work.

5. Set goals and move toward them.

Focus on milestones like daily word counts and deadlines (self-imposed or otherwise).

Writing a book is like summiting a mountain: you do it one step at a time . When you reach the top you might be a little exhausted and out of breath, but you’ll look back at all you’ve accomplished and feel proud.

Without these smaller milestones, it might be hard to finish your piece of writing, or even find the motivation to keep writing each day.

Stories are finished one day at a time, with hard work and a desire to grow your writing process.

Don't sweat the small stuff in your first drafts, like word choice. Instead, set a long term goal of continually learning how to write better and smaller milestones that will help you finish stories you start.

All of this is accomplished word by word, and by turning real and irrational fears into manageable tasks.

6. Embrace the fear of writing.

You’re going to be scared frequently in this business. My stomach still flips every time I submit a short story , even though I’ve submitted hundreds of times. It’s going to happen.

The trick is to acknowledge it and move forward. It didn’t kill you.

In fact, that little tingle of fear should be your signal to celebrate. You did what scared you and that’s amazing.

One book that a lot of writers really love on this subject is The War of Art by Steven Pressfield. If you're feeling discouraged or swallowed by your fear, check out this book for some motivation.

Even better, find and join a writing group like we have here at The Write Practice. Nothing helps you overcome your fears like a supportive community with a kindred creative spirit.

7. If your character can do it, so can you.

You don’t let your characters sit back on their heels because they’re scared, do you? I hope not, because if you do, you don’t have a story .

Your characters don’t have the luxury of sitting on the bench. They must make decisions and do something about the problem. And so should you.

Don’t let fear of writing take over your writing life. Decide to move forward, to write that book, to send out that manuscript. Decide and then do it.

8. Ask for help if you need it.

Don’t be afraid to ask for time to yourself so that you can write. Your family and friends will understand you need that time because writing is important to you.

Find a group of writers and readers that can go through your story and give constructive feedback. You can't improve in a vacuum.

Need to know what a day in the life of a flight attendant looks like, or the lingo of a truck driver? Ask them. Trust me, you’re not bothering them. People love talking about themselves.

In the same vein, if you need help with research, that’s literally what librarians are for. They’ll be glad to help.

Don’t let fear of asking for help stagnate your writing.

Embrace the Fear

I want to leave you with these words from Carrie Fisher:

Your fears are natural and normal. They're also not the end of the story.

Your task, the challenge for every writer, is to face that fear of writing, acknowledge it, and write, share, publish anyway .

Need extra motivation? Have you checked out The Write Practice’s 100 Day Book program ? It’s the best way to stop letting fear of writing control you and get that book done. Click here to find more information on the course.

What scares you most about writing and/or the business side of writing? What are some steps you can take to overcome that fear? Let me know in the comments !

Today I want you to spend fifteen minutes writing about a time you were scared to do something but did it anyway. Describe the exact feelings of fear you had. How did you feel after you'd done what scared you?

When you’re finished, share your work in the Pro Practice Workshop here (and if you’re not a member yet, you can join here ).

Join 100 Day Book

Enrollment closes May 14 at midnight!

Sarah Gribble

Sarah Gribble is the author of dozens of short stories that explore uncomfortable situations, basic fears, and the general awe and fascination of the unknown. She just released Surviving Death , her first novel, and is currently working on her next book.

Follow her on Instagram or join her email list for free scares.

Work with Sarah Gribble?

Bestselling author with over five years of coaching experience. Sarah Gribble specializes in working with Dark Fantasy, Fantasy, Horror, Speculative Fiction, and Thriller books. Sound like a good fit for you?

Trackbacks/Pingbacks

8 Bold Ways to Overcome Your Fear of Writing | rogerpseudonym - […] “ Stay afraid, but do it anyway. What’s important is the action. You don’t have to wait to be…
A New Writer’s Fear – My Writing Experience - […] 8 Bold Ways to Overcome Your Fear of Writing The Write Practice […]
Team Names - Cool, Awesome, Funny and Tough Names for Teams - […] below names are for those that are tough, strong, badass team. Any team that specializes in being bold with…

Submit a Comment Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Submit Comment

Join over 450,000 readers who are saying YES to practice. You’ll also get a free copy of our eBook 14 Prompts :

Popular Resources

Book Writing Tips & Guides Creativity & Inspiration Tips Writing Prompts Grammar & Vocab Resources Best Book Writing Software ProWritingAid Review Writing Teacher Resources Publisher Rocket Review Scrivener Review Gifts for Writers

Books By Our Writers

You've got it! Just us where to send your guide.

Enter your email to get our free 10-step guide to becoming a writer.

You've got it! Just us where to send your book.

Enter your first name and email to get our free book, 14 Prompts.

Want to Get Published?

Enter your email to get our free interactive checklist to writing and publishing a book.

Home / Essay Samples / Life / Myself / Fear of Failure

Fear of Failure Essay Examples

A discussion of whether we should fear failure.

In order for us to come to a full understanding of that question, we must first define the variables it contains. The first is fear which, as defined by Jake Gyllenhaal’s character in the movie Nightcrawler, can be viewed as an acronym with the letters...

Fear of Failure Among American Students

“There is only one thing that makes a dream impossible to achieve: the fear of failure.” This is a quote by Paulo Coelho. Although, it is not directly referring to the public school system, I believe that this quote fits the mold for it very...

The Failure is One Step to Big Beginning

“Failure is success if we learn from it.” - Malcolm Forbes Bill Gates, an entrepreneur, programmer, philanthropists and perhaps ‘risk taker’. At a young age, after a few years living in the world of high school, it ended and he was kicked out into the...

Trying to find an excellent essay sample but no results?

Don’t waste your time and get a professional writer to help!