If we examine the fear of failure that Jason, the case study in the book, harboured, you will see that his was paralysing. Unlike my fear, it was evident and palpable and clearly in his awareness as he prepared for two interviews in preparation for his professional training. He found
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People with fear of failure do not like unfamiliarity.
One of the links between both the incidents referred to in the last blog was novelty and unfamiliarity. They were both situations that I had never experienced before, and in that connection fear of failure can be linked to social fear and toxic shame. But, there are also other lessons
My own fear of failure inhibited me although I was unaware of it
The first example of my fear of failure happened in 1979. As I mentioned in the last blog I was unaware until recently what my difficulty was. I had graduated from University College Cork with a Ph. D in History and shortly afterwards a position as a History lecturer in
Fear of failure stems from an innate feeling of being defective, a childhood wound.
You can either learn fear of failure, or it becomes engendered in you through neglectful parenting. I believe that fear of failure comes from a core feeling of not being good enough, which is turn stems from a child’s feeling of being unloved, and perhaps being overtly or covertly criticised.
Fear of failure is a core issue that inhibits our instinct for achieving.
Failure in the context of fear is not what it seems to those who are fortunate to have had a secure attachment to parents and, therefore, are blessed with high self-esteem. They see it as no more than negative circumstances from which they learn and move on. It is a
Fear of failure
For the next few weeks I want to look at a fear many of us have- fear of failure. All the issues I write about in this blog stem from an insecure attachement during childhood. In other words, they are all attachment issues and result from a failure in parenting.