Second Competitions Frighten Me : The Fear Of Failure

The good news is that when you begin to chip away at your ignorance, your levels of fear and hesitancy decline at the same rate. When you become thoroughly knowledgeable about what it is that you want to do, you will find yourself with far more confidence and courage than you have fear and doubt. And from that point on, you can begin to make some real progress.

    Fear can hold humans back for many reasons. The fears of failure and disappointment are only two of the reasons people give up before they have even begun. Not only does C.S. Lewis tell that “we can guard against the illusions of the imagination” but also in the bible it says,

Fast forward to high school. I went into my freshman year confident that I had a handle on my fear of English class. I had won the spelling bee at the end of my

Fear is paralyzing! When we become fearful we prevent ourselves from growing. In general I wish I could “do-over” every time I let fear get the best of me. A life experience that comes to mind is when I auditioned for the Alvin Ailey summer dance program. I was 13 at the time and my passion for dance was growing exponentially. Auditioning seemed like a great idea, however, by the end of it I wished I would have stayed at home. I was not ready mentally, physically, or emotionally for the pressure of auditioning. I found myself frustrated, hurt, and ultimately embarrassed. Girls younger than me performed at a higher level, and had better technique. On my way home I promised myself I would never audition again.

In the essay “Anxiety: Challenge by Another Name” by James L. Collier he says we can “accomplish wonders” if we look at anxiety as a challenge. Collier uses personal example of being offered a writing assignment in Europe for three months, he talks about how nervous he was and how thinking about everything he didn’t know about Europe made him anxious. He was starting to make excuses on why he shouldn’t take the offer, just like in the beginning of his essay when he didn’t go to Argentina with his friend. While writing a letter to decline the offer he thought back to a rule he had made for himself “you can’t learn if you don’t try,” so he took the offer. Collier took the anxiety he got from overthinking all the possible things that could go wrong and accomplished a wonder by going to Europe and making the

In Paulo Coelho’s book, The Alchemist, he demonstrates that people should let go of their fears in order to succeed in life. In several occasions the main author, Santiago, had lots of fear that interfere with him traveling to Egypt and finding his treasure. It took strength to overcome those fears and take the necessary steps to be able to pursue his Personal Legend and find his treasure. In addition to Santiago, the crystal merchant also had fears that prevented him from meeting his goals. I can related to both Santiago and the crystal merchant in that sometimes I have fears that interfere with my goals.

But what you often don’t want to face is often what you need to face (and the more you do it, the easier it gets).

Fear is an unpleasant emotion caused by the belief that someone or something is dangerous, likely to cause pain, or a threat. However in this case, Fear is the avoidance or put off of something because one is afraid. Considering modern day society’s oppression, fear is in fact our worst enemy, which is evident through our focuses on success rather than failure and by the inspirational experiences of failure. In order for they’re to be success in ones’ life, there must be backbreaking failures and barriers to overcome.

“Show me a good loser and I'll show you a loser,” Vince Lombardi once said. This saying could be the unsung anthem of American sports for children and teenagers. Everyone loves to win. In sports there is always competition. Is there too much emphasis on “the win” for kids and teens? This issue is important because it essentially develops the way children and teenagers think and react; it will affect them later on in life. Too much emphasis on winning is a problem because there is extensive pressure from parents and coaches, and the consequences can be severe.

Many athletes would agree that they have felt butterflies in their stomach or a sudden rush of adrenaline before an important game. This feeling can either translate into legendary performances or monumental failures. According to Sharon D. Hoar (2007), to fully comprehend anxiety’s effect on performance, one must understand the discrimination between two unique sets of sources: trait and state anxiety, and cognitive and somatic anxiety. Anxiety symptoms are numerous and unique to every athlete. Hoar suggests that athletes might report cognitive symptoms (eg. Inability to focus), somatic symptoms (eg. Sweaty palms), or both. The author discusses a variety of sources of anxiety and argues that it can have both positive and negative effects

In fact, the main reason to fear failure is how we imagine how others will view us when we fail. For example, if an individual keeps doing the same thing over and over, then the results will never change. As Albert Einstein stated, “a person, who never made a mistake, never tried anything new” (Brenner). Failure is not the enemy, but a life-changing experience. It is a human experience, and it prepares the way for us to grow and transform our lives. Mistakes are essential to the development of life, just as change is. Nevertheless, change is said to prepare us for life and without change, life would persistently be the same.

Everyone is born with a fear of failure. Failure is a part of our human nature, it is ingrained in us. Any successful person has achieved their success through failure. You can’t prevent it in any way, and it’s pointless to try and in the end, it will come. Some people have such a large fear of failure, they pass it onto their children, such as Morley Callaghan’s friend’s father. He gave his child only one chance, and lost all faith in him because of one failure. As a result of this, his friend lost all faith in himself and soon dropped out of school

know when or how it started. Maybe I’d had it all my life or maybe it

When one has a fear of something, one normally does not spend much time thinking about it, and it only affects one when one is forced to confront it.

This fear has limited my ability to do what I think is right. As a person who likes to keep people happy, that feeling of not being able to come through with a completed