The fear that holds would-be high achievers back

If you’re the person who got high grades all throughout school, yet feel like you haven’t achieved the potential you were told you had, this article is for you.

The trap of academic excellence

Children who are naturally intelligent or studious are often recognised, praised and rewarded at school and university.

So it’s natural to expect that the working world is the same: do good work, be rewarded - right?

Unfortunately not.

It’s usually a rude awakening to find that in the real world, you can’t just get by on merit. You need to be able to self-promote, communicate and big yourself up, and that can feel icky.

It also perpetuates a mindset that actually, you’re simply not good enough to achieve success, when actually, you just need to develop some personal PR skills.

The fear

If you spent the early years of your life being praised by family members and teachers for your intelligence, the first time you failed will probably stick out in your mind as a traumatising experience.

In fact, perhaps you’re so terrified of failure that you don’t take any risks, keeping you safe but smothering your own potential.

Here’s the thing: everyone fails.

Here’s the other thing: failure doesn’t say anything about you or your worth as a human.

Someone who never fails, never truly succeeds.

How to get over it

It’s one thing recognising a problem, but quite another to actually deal with it.

You know my philosophy: start small.

How can you expose yourself to potential failure or rejection, to the point where it doesn’t really bother you anymore?

I recommend watching this TED talk for ideas.

Ultimately, if you keep yourself small due to fear of failure, you’re preventing yourself from ever living up to your potential.

Remember that every single person you look up to has failed at some point, and you don’t think any less of them because of it.

Why should you be any different?