fear of failure Archives - The Career Success Doctor

I’ve just published a new post on another site called ‘How Does Fear Of Failure Affect Your Business?’. The article is all about the irony that fear of failure in business can actually lead to failure, because when we’re frightened, we often don’t do the things we need to do in order to thrive.

In fact this phenomenon is as true of our career, or indeed of life in general, as it is of a business. It really is so weird that the deep-held desire to keep ourselves safe inhibits us from taking what we perceive as risks, yet that in turn can stop us from having the happiness we desire in life.

How many times have you looked at someone and thought ‘wow, there’s an incredible human being in there – if they could only show it’? How many times have you ever felt you weren’t realising your potential?

Years ago, when I truly wasn’t realising my potential, I always thought it was other people. I convinced myself I was doing everything I possibly could to be visible, to be successful, to make a real impact. I felt frustrated that I couldn’t seem to make my mark or be heard by the ‘right’ people (most of whom I perceived as idiots anyway).

With hindsight, it’s not all that surprising I didn’t make the mark I wanted. No matter how well you think you are disguising your feelings, if you are contemptuous of others, they will sense it, at some level, sooner or later.

But that wasn’t the only thing that held me back.

Back then I had several beliefs about myself which weren’t particularly useful. The belief that I was unloveable. The belief that I wasn’t good enough. The belief that I wasn’t intelligent enough when, at the time, I already had a degree from Oxford and an MBA!

It’s extraordinary how we manage to get in our way, through our fears, our beliefs and a mis-placed notion of what will protect us.

If you’d like to read more, here’s the link to the article on fear of failure and how it affects a small business.

Image: © Doug Wheller : ‘Fear Terror Eye’

There’s a lot of talk going on in UK just now about the shorter working week, and whether it might contribute to sustainability. It’s partly down to a report produced by the think-tank, nef (new economics foundation – trendy in lower letters!). The Independent Newspaper kindly boils the report down to half a page.

The general argument is that in the UK we work harder than many of our European colleagues. Not as hard as folks in the US, but hard. Harder than we were 30 years ago, apparently. The nef thinks that a move down to a 21-hour working week would be a Good Thing For The Planet. By earning less, we would consume less, which must be good for the planet.

In my role as an executive coach, I meet many high flying executives who work very long hours. I also meet some who don’t. Yet the ones who work shorter hours are just as ‘successful’ (depending on how you define success) as those who work longer hours.

Among successful executives, some work hard because they feel they ‘should’. The organisation expects it of them. Some work hard because they love what they do. And for some, work is a better alternative than going home to a lonely house/an angry partner/howling kids or some other unwanted alternative. And a few work hard because they or they families are rampant consumers.

My own take on this is that if people are loving what they do, then why shouldn’t they do it? The problems arise when people are forced to work long hours, or they think they should for fear of losing their job or of failing or of falling down the economic pan. For those who stay at work because it is better than the alternative, the brutal answer is ‘sort your life out’, because come retirement day there’s a risk life really will lose all meaning.

Tim Ferris’ excellent book ‘The Four Hour Working Week’ really turns the idea of the 40 hour working week on its head. Even if you don’t subscribe to his thinking, it’s worth a read to see what is possible.

Of course, it’s very easy to talk about the need to return to a shorter working week if you can still earn enough to feed your family. But even in London, where some of the richest people in the world hang out, there are a huge number of people who are living on the poverty line. Those who are working struggle to find anything that pays a living wage. Under 16 hours a week and you can claim income support ( of course, I’m grossly simplifying the rules of a complex system).

But there are plenty of people who have gone from poverty to riches, from working all their waking hours to a 16-20 hour week or even less. And a lot of them have done it by becoming internet marketers.

The Irony Of Fear Of Failure

Does a shorter working week make for sustainability?