Dear Friend,

I wonder, have you ever opted out of something for fear of failure or embarrassment? Have you ever chosen to take no action on something you love/want to try/believe in because you don’t believe it will make a difference? I know I have, several times. I have had a HUGE fear of failure. Mostly because, for me, failure is embarrassing. And I hate to be embarrassed. Being embarrassed means being vulnerable and, at the centre of it all, this is what I hate the most -being vulnerable.

Anyway, I wanted to ask, because if you’re anything like me (at least in this regard) then it’s something you struggle with or are working on. Going for it even through the fear isn’t easy, but what’s the alternative? Playing it safe by doing something you don’t want to do?

You’ve seen the clip floating around of Jim Carrey giving a speech at a graduation ceremony. He talked about how his dad wanted to be Comedian, but played it safe to provide for his family. He ended up being laid off and struggling to find new work. Jim said in his speech his lesson from that was “you can fail at what you DON’T want, so you might as well take a chance on doing what you love!” (check out the clip here)

That has stuck with me better than anything else when it comes to my fear of failure. I’d thought that if I played it safe, then I wouldn’t be doing what I loved, but at least I’d be able to pay the rent. Haha not so! When you see that failure may come regardless of what you choose to do, it becomes much more obvious what choices to make.

I hope that made sense. But if we reframe our fears of failure and see that we can “fail” at anything, but we can also succeed immensely, then it’s easier to make the choice to do what we love.

Here’s hoping that you go forward and do what you love. Give it your best effort, even through the fear.

All my love,

Angel xo