Making Space for the fear of failure
Following the Buck’s loss to the Miami Heat in the first round of the NBA playoffs last week, Giannis Antetokounmpo’s comments on failure went viral. When asked if he viewed the season as a failure, Antetokounmpo shared some compelling insights on what it means to divorce failure from winning, and what it means to move forward when we haven’t yet achieved our goals.
“There’s no failure in sports. You know, there’s good days, bad days. Some days you are able to be successful. Some days you are not. Some days it’s your turn, some days it’s not your turn. And that’s what sports is about. You don’t always win.”
I won’t pontificate on the comments further because the internet has already said quite a bit. But the story forced me to consider how we confront the fear of failure.
We know that there is learning in failure. We know that failure is often necessary for success and playing for big goals. And yet, it takes a lot of mental fortitude to avoid letting the fear of failure dictate our lives. It’s much easier to stay within our comfort zone and not so easy to approach failure the way Giannis does.
If we could just repeat, “Failure is learning. Failure is learning” or any other mantra 100 times and be cured of the fear forever, life would be so much simpler!
So what can we do? I offer you no cure but rather a few perspectives.
In her book, Big Magic, the writer Elizabeth Gilbert encourages the reader to stop fighting their fear.
“...I’ve noticed that when people try to kill off their fear, they often end up inadvertently murdering their creativity in the process. So I don’t try to kill off my fear. I don’t go to war against it. Instead, I make all the space for it. Heaps of space. Every single day.”
What’s necessary to make the space?
In The 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership, co-authors Jim Dethmer, Kaley Warner Klemp, and Diana Chapman argue that a compelling vision forward multiplied by dissatisfaction with the status quo are the first ingredients we need to be ready to transform. They maintain that these ingredients must be combined with the first few steps towards change to overcome our resistance, doubt, and fear. They know that resistance, doubt, and fear will surface and that we need something powerful to motivate us to continue on when that happens.
Are you ready to make space for your fear in pursuit of your dreams? I encourage you to look at your responses to questions inspired by Dethmer, Warner Klemp, and Chapman’s writing.
What vision of your life is impossible to achieve by playing the same game? Even if the vision feels murky, what do you already know you do and don’t want that requires making a change? (ie. more time with family, balance, time for creativity, etc)
Is your dissatisfaction with the status quo strong enough that the risk of inaction feels too high to pass up?
What steps are you committed to taking right now in pursuit of your vision?
And if the answers to those questions feel exciting and absolutely terrifying? You’re probably on to something.
