Failure Fear Doubt A Trifecta for Discouragement

5 Steps to Overcome Your Response to Failure, Fear, & Doubt

Failure Fear Doubt A Trifecta for Discouragement can sometimes even self-loathing, but you can overcome this with some simple steps and begin to think “I Can” again!

Failure Fear Doubt – We all Experience It

Failure is part of living. We ALL must fail in order to learn. It’s just how life is, but that doesn’t mean it won’t cause fear and doubt inside of you.

Just yesterday I had a very bad day and I didn’t get much accomplished because of that. I was experiencing a sense of failure, fear, and doubt, but I did not immediately recognize it. I just knew I felt yucky and unproductive.

Then it hit me what was going on. That inner voice of failure and fear was creating doubt inside of me.

We received some not so happy news at my house, and it created a firestorm with my husband, which got me off-balance and then created that sense of failure, fear, and doubt.

I Knew I Had to Change My Thinking

There was so much going right, so why was I focusing on the failure. There’s a Bible verse that I love: In everything give thanks 1Thess 5:18. There are many times that I don’t understand this verse, and then like today, I do!

I gave thanks for the problems so that I could begin to clear my thinking and get myself squared away. Here’s what I did.

Failure Fear Doubt – 5 Ways to Overcome These

Step 1 – Awareness

I think you’ve probably already heard the old adage, half the battle is figuring out that there is a problem. You have to begin to know yourself well enough to understand when this is happening to you.

Recognize that you are in fact experiencing a sense of failure, fear, and doubt about yourself. This may seem very, very easy, but quite frankly it is not and believe it or not the younger your are the harder these feelings are to recognize.

Step 2 – Lean Into It

That’s right, feel it. Get inside of the feeling and wallow around a bit. This always makes me think of a hog wallowing around in the mud because it’s true! This is exactly what you are doing; you are simply wallowing around in the mud with your feelings. And do you know what? That’s a good thing.

It is truly in a pig’s nature to wallow around in the mud. Wallowing in the mud is a euphemism for wallowing in self pity, and the results are the same, you get very, very dirty and icky.

People will remember pain over something that did not cause pain. I can still remember rolling on the floor crying over a thing years ago, and I remember why. It is very clear because the pain was very real.

I know you don’t like feeling like that but get it all out so that you can get past it.

Step 3 – Think It All Through

Pick yourself up and begin to think it all through. How did you end up feeling like you did and why. Don’t just ask yourself why once, continue to ask yourself several times over and over to get to the point where you truly understand what caused that reaction.

What failure caused the fear and the doubt? What specifically happened that made you feel like a failure in what you were doing, and then how did that cause fear? Were you working on a project at work that your boss said had to be exactly done in a specific manner and it didn’t work out then you felt like you were going to lose your job?

Did you run a race that you had been training for months for and now you wonder if you wasted all your time because you lost?

Whatever the failure that caused the fear and doubt, doesn’t matter, you just have to speak truth to yourself.

Step 4 – Speak Truth to the Bullshit in Your Mind

What’s the worst that can happen? Squash that failure and fear and doubt down out of your mind by speaking truth to all the bullshit that is running through it. So, your boss is not going to fire you. Will he be disappointed and maybe give you a few words? Probably, but you won’t lose your job and in turn lose your house and whatever else came into your brain at the time. You are a conscientious employee or you wouldn’t be reading this blog.

You didn’t waste your time training for that race. You are now in better shape than you were, healthier and ready for the next race!

Come on. Speak Truth and stand proud of all your hard work and everything you’ve accomplished. BTW, I have a blog on that very subject, you can find it right here: Speak Truth to Bullshit.

Step 5 – I CAN! Tell Your I Can Story

Tell your I can story to yourself, and then save it for a later date when you may want to tell it to others about how you overcame failure, fear, & doubt.

A change in attitude will change your life. Think of ways you are doing everything right. What is going right in your life? What are your many blessings that you should be thanking God for? What can you do to change the outcome of failure to one of success?

Failure Fear Doubt how do you overcome this? Final Words

Recognition-Breath-Feel-Think and finally ACT. The key to overcoming any adversity is these 5 steps. Don’t skip any of them because if you do then they will rear their ugly head again. You must lean into the pain because it gives you strength in the end to be more aware the next time.

Tell us your story of how you overcame failure, fear, & doubt in the comments below.

for though the righteous fall seven times, they rise again, but the wicked stumble when calamity strikes.  Proverbs 24:16

When calamity comes, the wicked are brought down, but even in death the righteous seek refuge in God.  Proverbs 14:32

He helps those who are in trouble; he lifts those who have fallen.  
Psalm 145:14

For all of sinned and fall short of the Glory of God.  Romans 3:23

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