I’m happy to say that I’ve come to be the type of person that isn’t too afraid of failure. That is to say, I still feel fear, but it doesn’t paralyze me. Because as I’ve experienced in trying anything new, the worst that can happen is somebody says no and maybe you’re a little bit embarrassed. But to be honest, people really don’t care that much. 

I think the major fear of failure and rejection comes from the idea that if you were to say, pursue your passion for singing, business, or cooking, and if you sucked at it (as all beginners do), you’d fall into the depths of hell (of your own creation) and you would never be able to crawl back out. 

I’m sure it can often feel that way, but it’s not true. 

I find it helpful to think of progress and setbacks as a long staircase.

If you’ve reached a certain point in your life where you feel comfortable. Then where you are is on a really long step in a much larger staircase. You can more or less walk comfortably on this one step because you’ve come up with the skill and confidence necessary to do so. 

However, if you were to try to take on an additional skill or pursue a larger passion, that would be an additional step up your staircase, which would require additional effort, and you might fail the first few times.

Now, what happens if you fail? 

Here’s the thing, you don’t fall all the way down to the very bottom of the staircase. You just fall back down to the last step you were on. In most cases, you fall back down to where you always were. Where you started. 

If we zoom out and look at things this way, it takes the drama and theatrics of failing out of the picture. It makes failure not so half bad. You don’t lose anything. You just fail to gain that extra step. At least, momentarily. 

So, long staircases.

Is there something you’ve been wanting to do? Go ahead and do it. If you fail. You end up back where you are right now anyway. So what’s the point in not trying?

by Jason Lam