Failure to Motivate You - Why You Keep Running Away From Your Goals

The fear of failure makes many of us feel like we can't do anything right. The fear of failing, or the fear of not doing enough, is one of the most paralyzing fears of all. Successful people believe differently. They know that failure can help them achieve more. They're much more motivated by profit than embarrassed by failure.


So what does all this mean? First, failure indicates pain. It's hard to face the pain and fear at the same time. But pain and failure are two sides of the same coin. When you fail to motivate you for your next goal, that's where your next goal will be stalled.

This brings up an important point. Why do we use failure as a motivational tool in our lives? Why do we fail to motivate ourselves in the same way that successful people do? It's because we recognize the value of failure in our lives. We recognize that sometimes we must fail in order to learn and grow.

Think about it. Do you have any dreams? If you don't, now is the time to write them down. And no matter how big or small they may be, if you haven't yet achieved one of your dreams, now is the time to do it. You can't wait for your next dream.

Now what about failure? How do you use it to your advantage? What if failure means pain?

Failure to motivate you to achieve your goals does not mean that you should wallow in self-doubt. Self-doubt can hamper your motivation. It can cause you to delay your plans. It can cause you to doubt your abilities are finite. These are all harmful things to your future success. The successful people in your life don't worry about these things.

Instead, they use failure to empower them. They understand that there are times when there will be bumps in the road, there will be failures, there will be bumps in the road, but they use failure to help them bounce back, to get back on their feet, to get going again. So they don't worry about failure. They look at failure as a way to get to the next level, a way to move forward, not as something that will stop them from achieving their dreams. That's a very powerful attitude to have. And you can have it too.

By failing to motivate you, by leaving the door wide open for failure, these people leave you with a huge amount of emotional energy tied up in their failure. They then spend most of this energy trying to convince you that you should continue to run away from what you really want. "But what do I have to lose?" they ask. Well, if you give them the amount of time, effort, and emotional energy that they need to convince you that the benefits far outweigh the small loss of personal freedom, then you may find yourself choosing to go forward instead of looking for excuses to stay in the same place you've been running from.

To have the willingness to take the risk of moving forward is a key ingredient to becoming successful. But the willingness to risk what you believe in is not one thing, it's many things. You may be afraid of the rejection you may face along the way, but you also may be afraid of the unknown. That's why it's important to have the mindset of knowing that even if you fail at doing one thing, there's a good chance that you can find another way to succeed.

The fear of failure is a natural emotion that causes us to look for an excuse to avoid the real problem that we are trying to solve. We then use the "next time" excuse to try and justify not taking the action needed to solve our short-term issue. We can blame the setback on the next time, we can point to something that we did wrong last time, we can tell ourselves that this time it won't happen again, etc. But all of those excuses will only keep us from finding the real answer that we need to solve our issues.

What most successful people do differently than average people is they don't worry about failures until they happen. They know there will be a setback every once in a while. But instead of letting that setback get them down and stop them from reaching their goals, they simply look for a way to overcome that setback. They know that the true motivation for their success comes from their courage to continue pursuing their goals no matter what.


When it comes to failure, the worst thing that could happen is that you'll never reach your goals. You may not see that as an option, but that's exactly what happens when most of us run away from our dreams. We may not get discouraged, we may not give up, and we might even try a few times before we see results. However, what separates those who succeed from those who fail is the way they handle failure. If you want to become successful, learn how to manage the emotional energy that runs away from your dreams.