Some of the most famous, influential and successful people of our time, have at one time or another experienced major failure. As a child, Beyonce lost Star Search. Oprah was fired from her first job on television as a news anchor and Walt Disney was fired from his newspaper job for his “lack of imagination.”
These are just a few of the countless famous failures that you may or may not know about. It is easy to forget that the people we see as cultural icons now, were once simply people with dreams and passion.
What these three people, and all successful people, have in common is their unwillingness to quit and perhaps more fear of mediocrity than failure. In the three examples above the ‘failure’ seemed to fuel the passion to stay in the game.
Mediocrity is defined as the quality of something that is not very good. And while Bey, O and Walt had talents that were, according to their superiors, not good enough, they never stopped trying. Even if they were afraid to fail they did not let it stop them from staying the course. Their persistence, talent and passion put each of them in the category of greatest talents of the last century.
FAILURE is full of pertinent information. Analyze, Learn, Apply & Keep Going.
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Fear of failure can keep you stuck or even paralyze you when it comes to taking the next steps towards your desired goal. It can also push you into unfocused overdrive, causing you to feel unfulfilled and frazzled. Neither of which will get you where you want to go.
Try to remember that fear is just a feeling, like all your other feelings.
It should not have some elevated status in your emotional life. What if Walt Disney never moved past his newspaper failure? Whether you’re a fan or not, a world without Disney would be a very different place. What if Oprah decided to give up on television and choose a more ‘practical’ career. We would all be worse off as she has touched millions with an invitation to think differently about ourselves and our world. And we don’t call Beyonce Queen B for nothing. She is an inspiration and becoming an icon to a younger generation.
Your dreams, big or small, are specific to you. No one has dreams in the exact way that you do, and no one can express them as you will. In the face of fear try to remember this awesome Martha Graham quote:
“There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and will be lost.”
The expression of your dreams and desires is vital, and as powerful as fear can feel, you are more powerful. Fear often masquerade as other emotions, that is why decoding your relationship to fear is mandatory if you want to bust through those blocks.
Ninety-eight percent of the time fear is just a feeling. When you can identify fear for what it really is, you begin to minimize it’s power. Take time to recognize where you feel fear in your body and what it feels like. Some people feel fear in their stomach, others in their throat or even legs. In moments when you are experiencing fear take a few seconds to scan your body. Where do you feel discomfort? Breath into this spot. When you acknowledge how you feel and bring your attention to it, you actually are allowing yourself to feel the feeling so it can then pass through you. Feel it to release it.
Feeling your fear is one of the many ways that believe it or not, you can make fear work for you. How do you manage your fear? In the comments below I would love to hear how fear affects you. Do you fear failure or mediocrity? Or both?
See you in the comments and as always, take care of you.
Love Love Love
Terri
Terri Cole is a licensed psychotherapist, transformation coach, and an expert at turning fear into freedom. Sign up for Terri’s weekly Tune Up Tips and follow her on Twitter.
Image courtesy of Tomasz Stasiuk.
