Kevin Vogelsang

Fear of failure is a powerful motivator, and it shouldn’t be underestimated, otherwise we run the risk of not harnessing it, or worse, letting it paralyze us.

It’s surprising how many successful people were so worried about “not being good enough”.  This feeling of inadequacy drove them to work harder than everyone else and pushed them to the front of the pack and beyond.

Charles Schwab suffered from dyslexia, a learning disability that causes difficulty with reading and writing.  Although he was unaware he had the disorder until he was 40, supposedly, his difficulties caused him to work relentlessly to overcome it.

When we put our name on something, and publicly engage in some task, we can’t let ourselves fail.  We’ve proclaimed it to the world.  This creates accountability to our own pride and others we don’t want to let down.

The danger is that fear of failure stops us from trying.

When taking up a new endeavor, we might be tempted to not tell anyone.  We actually help ourselves by telling everyone we can.  Not only will this motivate us to work harder, we also give others the opportunity to help us.

-Kevin
12.13.2009