How to Overcome Fear of Failure (One Mindset Shift That Changed Everything) | E95

Gino Cordone [00:00:00]:
Foreign. Hello, and welcome to episode 95 of Working towards our purpose. In today’s episode, we’re going to talk about overcoming the fear of failure and a mindset shift that we’ll talk about at the end of the episode. Before we get into that and before we get into the episode, just going to take a moment to slow down, check in with ourselves and see how we’re feeling today. All right. Yeah. Hopefully you got a second to slow down, to take a breath in, perhaps a busy day. So for me, if I’m checking in with myself, I’m.

Gino Cordone [00:00:58]:
It’s a little gloomy out. Has been, I feel like, for the past few days, so feeling a little bit lower energy, but. But got some. Got some good things in the works. Been doing some cool stuff and excited about that. Been working on some music. Been playing some music. Yeah, got.

Gino Cordone [00:01:19]:
Got a quick little, like, month, like, side gig that’s related into audio, which I’m excited about. Yeah. So feeling good overall. And today, you know, this episode is about overcoming the fear of failure. And I’m not quite sure where I first started thinking about this. I think I was talking to somebody who was, like, starting a new job or a new career or making some sort of big move and just talking about being, like, afraid of it. And, like, it’s. It’s scary.

Gino Cordone [00:01:54]:
Like, change is scary. And I think that we all have a fear of failure. And. Well, maybe we don’t all, but I certainly did growing up. I actually remember one time we were in, like, maybe middle school or something, and we were, like, kind of filling out this sheet of things about us, and one of the questions was, like, what is something that you’re afraid of? And I can’t quite remember how it went, but people were putting spiders and heights and stuff like that, and I remember putting failure on mine. I’m afraid of failing, and I don’t even know why. I don’t even know if I knew what that meant at that point. Um, maybe I just thought it was, like, a cool answer or like something that the teacher wanted to hear or something.

Gino Cordone [00:02:46]:
I don’t know. But it is quite interesting that, like, the. This fear of failure is, like, so built into all of us, it seems. Again, I don’t want to speak for everybody in existence, but I have talked to a lot of people who are afraid of failing, and it makes sense. We don’t ever want to, like, do something wrong or. Or fail or be embarrassed at getting something wrong. But I think, and this is no shock, but the fear of failure holds us back a lot of times. And I think if I were to think back when I was leaving my corporate job, I was petrified that I was making a wrong decision and that it wouldn’t work out.

Gino Cordone [00:03:27]:
And I don’t know, I think anything you can kind of look, look back. Anything that you’ve done and made a change or got a new job or went somewhere crazy for school or whatever, there’s always two sides of it. One, oh, this could be a mistake, or it could be really good. And I think that, I don’t know, sometimes maybe you have to risk that looking dumb or doing something wrong to. I don’t know, I’m rambling. But. Yeah. The point is, I think that the fear of failure holds us back a lot.

Gino Cordone [00:04:08]:
And it’s understandable that. I think even just the way that we’re brought up in our school systems, that’s kind of all we know up until graduating high school. It’s like, you take a class, you have to pass or do well on the test in order to continue on and get to the next grade. And everything is just structured around not failing. And I mean, look at the letter grades that we get, right? F is for failure. And it’s like this horrible thing. So it makes sense as to why we’re all kind of afraid of failure and why we’re trying to avoid failure. And especially that’s not even to talk about.

Gino Cordone [00:04:45]:
If you had a parent or a parental figure that was a perfectionist and wanted you to be perfect, which I know a lot of people struggle with also just the idea that you have to be perfect. So, yeah, it makes sense why we feel failure. And I guess I was just kind of thinking more into this. And I guess from my perspective now, I’m like, yes, I conceptually understand that fearing failure is natural and not something that you have to let hold you back. But it doesn’t mean that it’s easy to fail or that you want to go fail. I think I still, like. I know that it’s like fake, like the fear of failure doesn’t. Doesn’t matter.

Gino Cordone [00:05:32]:
But I still will sometimes not do things because I’m afraid of looking stupid or like looking dumb or sounding bad in music. So, yeah, I mean, just because you understand something doesn’t mean that, like, you’ll act in that way because it’s still hard because you still have to overcome years and years and years of trying to stay as far as possible away from failure. So just because you maybe want to face failure head on now doesn’t Mean that all the time you can. So for whatever that means. But anyways, as I was kind of thinking more and more about failure and the fear of failure, I guess I like to dissect things. And maybe that’s not a surprise if you’ve been listening to this podcast. But I’ve been trying to think about how I felt as a kid as failure. And there was kind of two things that.

Gino Cordone [00:06:29]:
Two thoughts that came to me that were kind of planted into my head when I was a little kid and growing up and adolescence and that sort of thing. The first one, and they kind of have to do with the fear of failure. And the first one was that things can either be done right or things can either be done wrong. So you’re either doing something the right way or the wrong way. And this is very black and white thinking, and of course not true. I think almost everything can be done more than one way correctly. You could do a math problem different ways and get the same answer. So there’s not just one way of doing something.

Gino Cordone [00:07:12]:
And I think that may have come from schooling too. But I think for me, a lot of it came from my father wanting to have me succeed and having good intentions for me and wanting me to learn and that sort of thing. But he was very much of the mindset of the way that I know how to do it is the right way and anything else is not the right way. So it gave me this idea that in life you either do something the right way or you mess up and you do it the wrong way. And for a long time I thought like that. And for a long time I thought like, gee, I hope I’m doing this the right way. Like if, you know, if I’m doing something new or, yeah, going out and like, starting my side business and stuff, I was like, I was really worried about doing something wrong. And it kind of like makes you afraid to do something because you’re afraid to do it the wrong way.

Gino Cordone [00:08:02]:
And I’ve learned since that there’s not the right way and the wrong way. There’s like a multitude of different ways you can do something and they all teach you something. So none of them are really the wrong way. But that’s now with a different perspective on failure and not being afraid of failure, but knowing that, quote, unquote, failure will teach us something. So that was the first thing. The first thing was the black and white thinking of right way, wrong way. And I thought like that for a long time. And then the second thought that came to mind in thinking about how I felt about failure as a kid was that the wrong way is the hard way or the hard way is wrong? The hard way is wrong.

Gino Cordone [00:08:51]:
That’s a tongue twister. And again, I think for me, this came a lot from my father of, like, he would always say, like, work smarter, not harder. And a lot of times, not that that’s maybe a bad phrase, but I think a lot of times that came off to me, the way I understood that was like, if I don’t do it the way that he thinks is right, then I’m doing it wrong, and I’m wasting my time and I’m doing something bad. So I always thought that doing something the hard way was a bad thing. So I would always try to find the easy way to do something. I would always overthink things and try to think my way through something Instead of just using my intuition or hitting an opportunity when it came and figuring the rest out later. I would always overthink things. And I think that this isn’t special to me.

Gino Cordone [00:09:40]:
I think a lot of people think that the hard way is the wrong way. And I guess it kind of. You know, in thinking about this episode, I questioned myself, and I was like, yeah, huh? I guess I kind of still do believe that the hard way is the wrong way. But is it? Is doing something the hard way the wrong way to do it? Is it not worthwhile if you do something the hard way? And I think I just started questioning more that maybe that’s not a bad thing. Maybe doing something the hard way is what’s needed. Because you just. I don’t know, you think about all the courses you see online and all these classes and people trying to teach you how to do stuff. And not that they’re bad, but a lot of them are always like, here’s the best way to do this.

Gino Cordone [00:10:27]:
Here’s the fastest way to make money. Here’s the easiest way to do this. And again, not that that’s not valuable, but I think sometimes we. We forget that doing something the hard way actually teaches us something valuable, like determination and willpower or grit. Maybe I’m hesitant to use that term, but I think back to when I learned how to play guitar. And there’s no easy way to learn how to play the guitar. You have to sit there and fuck up your fingers for weeks or months, and it’s super painful. And then eventually you can start playing notes and playing chords and playing songs that you want to know, that you want to learn.

Gino Cordone [00:11:12]:
There’s no easy way to do that. And everything probably shouldn’t be done the hard way, but just something for consideration. Maybe some things are worth doing the hard way. So, yeah, that was interesting to me. That thought was interesting to me. And I thought I’d share in this conversation of failure and thinking about how we can let failure hold us back. So, you know, if. If that made any sense, take it.

Gino Cordone [00:11:44]:
If it doesn’t, then don’t. But. But those were two thoughts that kind of came to me as I was thinking about failure and, like, how we can deconstruct. How I can deconstruct failure and not be. Not play into it, not let failure or the fear of failure drive my decisions. Because I think that if we can make decisions based off of not fear, like, if we can make decisions based off of our gut and hope and positivity and that sort of thing, that ends up maybe leading our lives in a better direction than kind of just bouncing around and being afraid of things. So, yeah, those are the two things. These are, I guess, maybe the two myths that from my childhood and my growing up, that things can only be done the right way or the wrong way.

Gino Cordone [00:12:40]:
Very black and white thinking. I think that’s a myth, and then that the hard way is the wrong way. And I also think that that’s a myth. So now moving past this, okay, we understand maybe failure isn’t such a bad thing and maybe it has a lot to teach us. But how do you go from somebody who’s always avoided failure to now somebody who can take failure head on? And I don’t think there’s an easy answer to this, but I think the answer for me has been exposure therapy and just doing it, just failing, going and doing something. Maybe it’s not a huge thing. Maybe you don’t go take out a business loan and then default on it, but go do something that is hard and fail and not even failures. I don’t know, it’s not even a good word.

Gino Cordone [00:13:32]:
But I guess for me, if I’m thinking about something I’ve done recently, this year I started going to open mics and playing my music out, which is something I’ve never done. My own music, singing guitar. And the first one was really hard. And actually all of them were probably pretty hard. None of them are, like, easy, but I had one, like, two weeks back. And I don’t know, it was like the perfect setting. I was feeling comfortable and I felt like I did okay. I felt like I was like, okay.

Gino Cordone [00:14:07]:
That wasn’t too bad. That was pretty good. And that’s big for me because I always am super hypercritical. But it was just a reminder of the repeatedness before I go. Every time I’m like, do I really want to go? I don’t know. It’s so much easier to sit home and not go, but forcing myself, exposure therapy, doing the thing that you’re afraid of and repeating to do it, repeating it and putting in the reps and slowly it becomes easier. And I think, I think in doing that it’s gone on to different areas of my life. Practicing going up and sucking sometimes and making it through and still being alive and being like, you know what? Afterwards I always feel this.

Gino Cordone [00:14:55]:
I’m always like, well, I’m proud of myself. Either way I did it. Even if it wasn’t perfect, who cares? I tried and I’m getting better and that’s great. Um, so confronting that like fear of doing bad or embarrassing myself, I think it’s made me more courageous in other areas of my life too. And I think like the other opportunities I alluded to earlier, I think you know, part of that is like, like, you know, applying for things that maybe I think I’m not that qualified for on paper and just like taking a chance and like not being afraid that of a no. Not being afraid of. Not being afraid of a no and it leading to good things. And yeah, I think that all that to say is that if you’re afraid, maybe if you’re someone right now that’s afraid of making a change in your life or afraid of failure, I would say start small and just fail at something.

Gino Cordone [00:15:51]:
Just try it and see where it takes you. Because I think there’s real good stuff, there’s real knowledge and perspective in failing at something. And yeah, you just, you learn so much more from failing. And not that it even has to be a big massive failure, it could just be like a little thing. But yeah, I mean I know this is a probably super over talked topic about fearing failure, but these are my thoughts and hopefully they’re helpful. If not, that’s cool too. But thank you for listening, thank you for being here, thanks for making it to the end and if you did, and maybe if you’re somebody who is hard on yourself and you’re your own worst critic, I know what that feels like and it’s not fun and it holds you back from, from trying things. And if you would like some help with trying to soften your inner critic, I’ve made a free seven day guide to try to help soften your inner critic.

Gino Cordone [00:17:00]:
If that’s something that interests you. There’s a link in the show, notes in the YouTube description. Wherever you’re watching this, there’s the link everywhere. It’s free to download and it’s everything that I’ve learned about being hard on myself into one like PDF document. So hopefully it can be helpful to you if you enjoyed this. But that’s all I got for you today. I will see you on another episode real soon. Thank you for listening and have a great day out there.

Gino Cordone [00:17:27]:
Take care.