One of the biggest things I hear that constraints talented individuals is the “fear of failure”

But what it is it truly? A thread.

I was talking to my very talented friend who is applying for business schools in the US.

She said “what if I don’t get in? What if the effort is not worth it?”

“Will I have wasted so many months? What will I have to show for it”

I have heard this so many times, including in my own head.

The fear of failure grips a lot of us, from doing things that we think we should do, to questioning the effort we have put in something.

We ask - is it worth it?

What we are subconsciously doing is that we are tying all our efforts, over days, months, even years, to one single outcome.

That one outcome is usually one socially accepted metric.

It could be money, a promotion, getting into a college, getting an award.

This psychological sleight of hand probably is an evolutionary outcome of optimizing effort to outcome.

It also is an oversimplification that makes it easy for us to “process”

If the hunting process fails, curse yourself to course correct so that you do it right later