Do you remember a time in school when the teacher asked a question, you either knew the answer or you were pretty sure you knew the answer, yet you didn’t raise your hand?  Why didn’t you raise your hand?  Were you afraid of being wrong?  Were you afraid of looking like a failure?

Funny how those lessons we learn so early in life stick with us.  Those early life experiences condition our behaviors even today… even when they don’t make sense for our current reality.

Today we’re going to talk about…

The Fear of Failure

By definition failure is a lack of success, falling short, a breakdown, inadequate growth, or bankruptcy.  Wow, that sounds really bad doesn’t it?  Who wouldn’t want to avoid failure?

Yet, it’s almost impossible to find success without experiencing at least some failure.  Because it’s through our failures that we discover how to succeed.

photo credit: jemartin03

Abraham Lincoln lost the election for the U.S. Senate twice before becoming our 16th President.  Like countless others from all walks of life he did not allow a fear of failure to keep him from taking action.

Fear of failure really boils down to risk.  When you avoid taking action because you fear failure what is the risk:

• Do you risk physical harm?
• Is there a chance for a negative consequence?
• Could you suffer a fatal financial blow?

Rarely do you run the risk of physical harm when you take the actions you need to take to increase sales.

There is almost always a potential for a negative consequence so let’s do this.

• List every potential negative consequence you can think of
• List every potential positive consequence you can think of
• Decide if the risk of reward is greater than the risk for consequence

In most cases you aren’t risking your life savings on one action, yet you are risking a potential financial loss.

2 Questions 1 Consideration

So that really brings us to 2 questions and 1 consideration.  The 2 questions:

1. How much greater is the potential gain than the potential consequence?
2. Are you willing to trade the risk for potential financial loss for the reward for potential gain?

If you answer “yes” to the second question then you have one consideration:

• How do I maximize my potential for gain and minimize my financial risk?

Typically maximization will come from leveraging your actions.  For example, when you go from connecting with prospects one at a time to connecting with many prospects at one time that’s leveraging your actions.

Your willingness to get the help you need to effectively take the action minimizes your financial risk because you spend less time making trial and error mistakes and more time selling.

Ask These Questions

• What is your fear of failure?
• What are your risks?
• Would you rather fail because you never tried or would you rather succeed even if you have to experience a few failures along the way?
• What will you maximize?
• How will you minimize your financial risk?

As you answer these questions you’re figuring out your own road map for success.

Have you overcome a fear of failure?  Tell us how you did it.

This entry was posted on Monday, June 8th, 2009 at 6:00 am and is filed under sales coaching. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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