Fear of failure is about the fear of poor results or fear about the negative consequences of performing badly. Athletes worry about letting themselves down and letting their team and coach or manager down. They may also worry about disappointing a parent or family member or not living up to the public's expectations.

Fear of failure is often rooted in what an athlete assumes other people will think about him or her if and when they see them performing poorly. Fear of failure covers anxiety about losing, being seen as a failure, letting other people down, not living up to expectations, choking or embarrassing yourself.

Fear of failure is linked to perfectionism. Many elite athletes are perfectionists who have very high expectations of themselves. This can lead them to worry excessively about losing or failing. Fear of failure can lead an athlete to focus on how to avoid situations and experience negative thoughts and feelings and high anxiety. In short, fear of failure leads athletes to lose their winning mentality.



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Fear of Failure Regulation Tips
1 Accept/tell yourself that you will not achieve your goals without learning from losses, mistakes, and errors.
2 Overcome fear of failure by trying different approaches and persisting until you achieve your goals/succeed.
3 Take the positives out of a situation where you don’t perform the way you planned and analyze what you are going to do differently next time.
4 Use positive affirmations such as "I don’t worry about what people think" to counter thoughts about failing.
5 Don't be too hard on yourself when you don't succeed.
6 Get failure into perspective and learn something every time you lose.

What experts say

I’ve missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.

Michael Jordan Basketball Player

It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all – in which case, you fail by default.

J.K. Rowling Writer


Do the SPQ20 and find out how skilled you are at managing fear of failure