WILLINGNESS

TO FAIL

Willingness to Fail is an often-overlooked component of the Confidence code.

Whilst having competence and mastery in certain skills and aspects of life is the
visible end result that we see in confident people, it is in fact our willingness to
fail that is the essential ingredient on the path towards competence and
mastery. We cannot become masterful at anything complex or challenging
without many attempts, errors and setbacks along the way.

Willingness to Fail is something that starts being fostered in our childhoods,

with parents who were very patient and encouraging in response to our failed
attempts at a task. In the absence of this kind of encouragement, we must
learn to become our own cheerleaders. By embracing the spirit of Willingness
to Fail, we come to see setbacks and errors merely as “feedback” and learning
experiences, not as proof of being a “failure”.

Willingness to Fail requires us to make many attempts at a task or skill or goal

that we are yet to master or achieve, and accept that many of these attempts
will be made in the public arena with our peers and mentors looking on at us.
Without the courage that fuels the willingness to fail, many people will shy away
from any potential "public humiliation" and be undermined by their unhealed
"imposter syndrome", and only attempt small goals and tasks in the privacy of
their own company, exposing themselves only to their own judgement and at
least not the judgement of others. To activate Willingness to Fail, we commit to
protect ourselves from the judgement of others with the belief that "at least I
am in the arena having a go", which creates a sense of pride and courage to
keep going in the face of setbacks, failed attempts or disappointment.
 WILLINGNESS
TO FAIL

The Origins of Low Willingness to Fail

The development of a low sense of ability to cope with failure once again comes from our
social editors and messages we receive via our archetypal conditioning. Fear of failure
comes from messages such as “you will never amount to anything”, “you're not as smart or
talented as your sister” or “ if you aim too high, you will just be disappointed”.

Fear of failure is a very common code that we download without even realising. We may
dream small, procrastinate or give up easily, but we do not realise that these are all
avoidance behaviours associated with the fear of failure. These behaviours are functional
because they protect us in the short-term from feeling like a failure, but they are equally
unhelpful because they also prohibit us from achieving success. Fear of failure can develop
from being brought up in a very successful family where there were high standards of
achievement and lots of negative comparisons. It can be also be downloaded from being
criticised, devalued, compared to others, and ridiculed by your parents or social editors such
as teachers, if you struggled to learn at the same pace as your peers or did not achieve
success in areas deemed important by them. We download and internalise these messages
and they become part of our subconscious mind and they play over and over in the
background like the hard drive on your computer.

Basically, if the message from your social editors is that you are inadequate, fall short, are
not as smart or talented as other people, these beliefs can permeate across all domains of
your life and affect your relationships, career, finances and your life in general. It’s definitely
worth putting the work in and healing this fear of failure and activating the WILLINGNESS TO
FAIL on the path to activating the Confidence code.
 WILLINGNESS
TO FAIL

Behaviours and feelings you might display if you have low WILLINGNESS TO FAIL
include:

Feeling inadequate or disappointed in yourself

Feeling ashamed of where you are at in your life right now
Procrastination and avoiding tasks and challenges you do not know for sure you
can do
Perfectionism, high achieving, works a lot harder than others
Workaholic - overcompensating for your perceived lack of talent
Inability to dream BIG
Believing failure is the “end of the world”
Self-sabotaging self-talk about your abilities
Lack of goals or low tenacity or motivation to go after your goals
No contingency plan - No "Plan B, C, D, E, & F", which creates huge anxiety about
achieving "Plan A"
Unhealed imposter syndrome; afraid of bring uncovered as a "fraud"

When you activate WILLINGNESS TO FAIL in your life, you will learn to realise that in
everything we do there is a chance we will make errors and fall short. If we
understand this and embrace this on the path towards mastery, we will achieve
more of our hopes and dreams and live a fuller and more rewarding life.
 WILLINGNESS
TO FAIL

WILLINGNESS TO FAIL: QUIZ

1. I procrastinate in tasks because I don’t feel confident that I can complete it

well enough YES/NO
2. I feel like a failure compared to my friends, siblings or colleagues YES/NO
3. I envy people who are high achievers YES/NO
4. I have an unfulfilled dream to achieve something great which feels out of
reach YES/NO
5. If I am not confident in something, I will avoid doing it YES/NO
6. I feel like everyone else around me is far more capable than I am YES/NO
7. I do things in a half-hearted way because I feel unsure about whether I’m
doing it right YES/NO
8. I often feel like an imposter in my work and feel afraid of being caught out as
not as competent as I appear on the surface YES/NO

If you answered "yes" to 4 or more of these statements, it is an indication that

you need to activate WILLINGNESS TO FAIL in your life if you want to fully activate
the Confidence code.