Whenever we try to improve ourselves by doing something challenging, such as giving up a long-held unhealthy habit or developing a long-sought healthy habit, a voice inside may discourage us, “You will never succeed; why bother to even try?” 

How can we deal with this voice? By learning to differentiate between fearing failure and assuming failure.

Fearing failure is not always undesirable; it can stop us from trying something too risky. And it can help us lower our expectations from ourselves to a more reasonable level, whereby we seek not long spectacular jumps that may not be doable for us, but small simple steps that are certainly doable for us.  

But assuming failure is always undesirable. That assumption leads us to paint dire future scenarios not as possibilities that we may have to face, but as inevitabilities that will leave us with no face to show to others. However, we don’t know the future and neither does our hyper-active, hyper-negative imagination; therefore, these forebodings and their underlying assumptions are unreasonable.

Additionally, accepting such assumptions makes us unnecessarily paralytic; it stops us from even trying, thereby ensuring the very scenario that it assumes: we stay stuck where we are. In our project of self-transformation, there is a possibility of success if we try, but there is certainty of failure if we don’t even try. Emphasizing the self-destructiveness of such a mindset, the Bhagavad-gita (18.35) deems it a perverse determination in the mode of ignorance.

When we learn to differentiate between a healthy fear of failure and a toxic assumption of failure, we can bring a greater dose of both realism and resilience in our endeavors for self-improvement.

One-sentence summary:

When we try to change for the better, fearing failure can help us make our expectations more reasonable; assuming failure, however, can make us unreasonably pessimistic, even unnecessarily paralytic.

Think it over:

  • Why is fearing failure not always undesirable?
  • Why is assuming failure unreasonable?
  • Why is assuming failure paralytic?

***

18.35: And that determination which cannot go beyond dreaming, fearfulness, lamentation, moroseness and illusion – such unintelligent determination, O son of Pṛthā, is in the mode of darkness.

How to deal with fear of failure

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