#421 Afraid To Fail

Overcoming the Fear of Failure

– Let’s Unplug This Together

Hey, you. Yes, you. Have you ever felt stuck, frozen in the headlights of your own expectations? Like you’ve got to get it just right or not bother at all? That nagging fear of failure with that belief of "I'm not good enough"—it creeps in, doesn’t it? It stops us before we even start. But guess what? Today, we’re pulling the plug on all that.

In this episode, we’re diving deep into what’s really behind that fear of failing. Spoiler alert: it’s not about being perfect. It’s about the stories we tell ourselves, the beliefs lurking in the shadows of our subconscious, and the ways we unknowingly keep ourselves stuck. But don’t worry—we’re not here to wallow. We’re here to shift.

What We’ll Uncover:

• Why your unconscious mind stirs up all that anxiety—hint: it’s trying to protect you, just not in the best way.
• The roots of perfectionism and how they keep you from living your best, most adventurous life.
• How to rewrite those old stories—yes, the ones that tell you “you’re not good enough.”
• Tapping into your wins—those times you nailed it, even when you doubted yourself.
• Anchoring powerful, feel-good emotions to calm that inner critic and give you the courage to.

There's loads of golden nuggets here along with the 'HOW' to change

Please share so that others too can create the life they deserve - pay it forward

https://personaldevelopmentunplugged.com/421-afraid-to-fail-lets-change-that

Enjoy, shine and be well

Paul

Shine Brightly 🌟

Paul

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Music Credits

Music by Wataboi, DreamHeaven, ccjmusic, and others from Pixabay.

 

And the transcript WARNING if you're a lover of the written word this may make you frustrated, or angry - you have been warned - is it an 'ism

 

The heads up to this longer podcast. Is there anything that resonates

 

The heads up to this longer podcast. It's all about I've got to be perfect because I can't fail. I'm afraid to fail. I'm anxious to fail. I'm fearful of failing. Is there anything that resonates? Well, we've got to deep dive into this, and find ways to just let that go. And now we're going toa let it go easily and simply because that's what we do here in simplicity of those genes. Okay, come with me. Get your diving gear on and let's find ways of letting this go right now.

 

 

 

 

Okay, the longer podcast, the deep dive, the deep dive in afraid to fail. And let's go straight into the pain. Really, Cloughie? Yeah, let's go into pain because it's painful. Here's a few words that I think M might resonate with you. It's got to be perfect. I've got to be perfect. It's got to be perfect. If it's not, what will people think? What will they think of me? And what will people think of what I do? Hey, what will that happen? What will happen then? What will it feel like if I get this really wrong, you know, sweating over the tiniest detail? Oh, it's no good. It's not good enough. In fact, I am not good enough. And I tell you what, let's do something that we even more. Even more. Maybe this will resonate even more than that. As you think of when you're doing something and you think it's not going to be good enough. But it's got to be perfect before it goes out into the world. You've got to be perfect before you go out in the world. Let's make a picture in our mind a wonderful movie. Better than Spielberg or anybody else could bloody produce of everything going bloody wrong. Yeah, let's do that. Make this wonderful movie, this picture in our head that shows total bloody failure. And guess what? That movie never happened, did it? That movie isn't happing. But the thing is, because of that movie in your mind, how do you feel? Well, not only you feel all that pressure of having to be perfect, people judging you. You start to get guilt, don't you? Guilt because you didn't produce the goods. But you haven't even produced the goods to hu. You get sadness because maybe you backed away from it, you didn't do it. Maybe there's a little bit of grief going with that sadness, like an extension to that sad. Then the anxiety suddenly kicks in. The fear. I ve gotta do it. I gotta do it. Don't we do this shit to us all the time? Especially when you got toa be perfect. And I want to give you a story. A story. Because this is exactly what one of my clients used to do. And when I spoke to her, she was saying this thing about I'm not good enough. And I said no, no, no, no, no. I know you're saying you're not good enough, but here's the thing. I think there's something deeper. And we went into the feeling of not feeling good enough. And she began to get the belief that was below I'm not good enough. Because I also said to her to, I'll say that again. Also said to her, I bet you're a bloody perfectionist. Because most people with the belief of I'm not good enough on everything else have that bit of perfectionism that they need to be and I'll tell you why shortly. And she said how'you know, Paul? I said well here's the thing. Did you really have to try hard at school or. She said I like to beat everyone at school. Said when you went to college, did you get any degrees? She said well, you know, I got degrees paol because I'm at the top of my job. And she worked in some type of hospital type position and she was a doctor of subkite and she was knocking it out the park. And she said I have to be my best all the time. All the time. All the time. And it's not the glass, ceiling. I've just got be best, got to do everything more than anybody else. Cannot be judged. I cannot be judged. And when we got into that feeling, she said, do you know what this belief is underneath? I'm not good enough. It's come to me now, I'm stupid. And she said, it makes so much sense to me now. And there is a real good positive behind this, you might say. Cluy. How can you be positive when you get guilt, sadness, grief, anxiety, fear, that pressure, that pressure and pressure to be perfect. And we all know, we all know there's no, you can't be perfect in this world. Nothing can be perfect. There's always something never quite perfect. You can always do that little bit better, can't you? Yeah, you can always do that a little bit better. So that was a pretty negative start, isn't it?

 

 

Your unconscious mind tries to protect you from failure, anxiety and fear

 

And here's the thing. Not going to go into the pleasure yet. Not going to go into the pleasure. But let's talk about this. There's a bloody good reason for all of this. And it's your unconscious mind trying to protect you. It's a great reason, isn't it, to be protected. Wouldn't you love to be protected all the time? Of course you would. I would. I love being in that feeling of feeling just so comfortable with myself and comfortable with the world and comfortable with everyone around me and comfortable with what I do. Wouldn't you? Yeah. See your unconscious mind, over time, something happened, something bloody small. Probably a long time ago when you was an IC icle person, something happened and it didn't quite. You did something and it wasn't quite right. Something happened. And your unconscious mind, well, I didn't like that feeling, didn't like that failure. Maybe there was a little bit of that sense of failure. Maybe there was that little bitter guilt. Maybe there's a little bit of sadness, a little bit of grief, maybe a little anxiety, a little bit of fear. And your unconscious mind says, I don't want this for you. I'm gonna protect you because I'm gonna give you this little belief. And it starts off as a little sense of I'm not good enough. That little bit of fear, little bit of anxiety to make sure you do a good job. Because then if your best friend makes sure you do a good job, how can you be judged? That seems pretty reasonable, doesn't it? But over time your unconscious mind says, I've got to accelerate this, I've got toa make it more intense because you keep doing bloody stuff that you have to do and you get bigger, more stuff comes along and you have to do it. So your unconscious mind says, I'm not gonna let you fail. I'm not gonna let you fail. I'm m not gonna have that feeling of failure. I'm really not. So I'm gonna make these feelings of anxiety, fear, I'm not good enough. Even the bits below, maybe I'm stupid and things like that even more intense. And what happens? Well, I'll tell you what happens in a minute. But here's the thing. If you do suffer from that I'm not good enough feeling, that feeling that you have to be perfect, that feeling you're gonna be judged. And you can see how that spreads into things like impostor syndrome and all that stuff. If you do suffer that, just think back, maybe go back a few years, not too long. But you'll probably notice that feeling isn't as intense as it is now. And if you went back even further, it's not as intense as it's even less intense. And it goes down because your unconscious mind has been ramping it up all to protect you. That's all it's doing. That's wonderful, isn't it? It is wonderful. The only problem is there is a bloody great conflict going on in the world here because your unconscious mind says I'm either going to protect you. Well, I will protect you either because I'm going to give you so much anxiety and stress now to make sure that you do your best job or you won't bloody do it because I'm going to frighten the Jeeus. I'GOT all these pictures in my mind. Remember all those movies going on, how bad it could be? Because you've really got to get better than that or you'got toa back away and don't do it. How do you feel in both of those situations? I bloody tell you do you feel a failure, you feel imperfect, you feel that guilt, the anxiety, the sadness, the grief, the fear, all that stuff. So there's a direct conflict. Your unconscious mind is protecting you from that stuff and the result is you feel it. And that's good in a way because now we can say to our unconscious mind I wanna change. And that's the whole thing.

 

 

Let's get back to m let's go into pleasure now

 

Let's get back to m let's see if we can go into pleasure now. Wanton pleasure is a great place to be, by the way. Wanton pleasure. Think of that. Heard that saying a Long time ago. Just go into wanton pleasure. But let's go from pain into the pleasure. And what's the first part of this pleasure? I'm going to tell you now, this is all changeable. This can be changed really quickly, really quickly. We can change this and we can be comfortable. And I said earlier in this podast, I love being comfortable in myself. I love being comfortable in the world. I love being comfortable with my friends. And whatever I'm doing, that's what I want. And you see, I tell you how much I feel that comfort. I want that comfort. The very first episode of this personal development unplugged podcast. Not the introduction one number one, but number two, it was all about being comfortable in the world. Letting go of fear, letting go of anxiety, letting go of panic attacks. They even did a hypnosis track it called #2.1 feeling comfortable. And it can change, as I say. But the thing is, firstly, where do we go wrong? Where do so many people go wrong when they try to change this? So many therapists, so many different people, they just want to change. They say, oh, do it this way, do it that way. There's a lot of cognitive stuff and they're ignoring something. They're ignoring your unconscious mind and it positive intention to try to protect you. They ignore it. They don't honour your unconscious mind. Your best friend who’s been doing it for fucking years to protect you and they ignore it completely. Now if I'm your best friend and you ignore me and I've been trying to do something for years and years and years and you ignore me, I'm going to say, do you know what? I'm going to do it even more. I'm not going to go along with this. And that's why they fail because again, they are setting up even more conflict in your mind m more conflict in your world because I just find it doesn't work. And we want to be protected in this world, don't we? We do want to be protected. And that's one of the prime directives of your unconscious mind. To heal you and protect you. That's what it's about. And it wants to protect you from failure. It wants it for you. It's been doing it for so bloody long. Thing is now it's just simply using out-dated processes, out-dated strategy, outdating emotions, behaviors, making those pictures in your mind, feeling the feeling. It's just, it worked a long time ago, but it's missing out. All those years of experience You've got all those years of skill, you've got all those learnings you've got. Because it just keeps doing the same thing. So we need to help him to change the belief. Well, not change the belief, but find a more empowering belief, to find more appropriate behaviours, empowering emotions. And, we need to basically ask your unconscious mind, which is what we re do in therapy, and you do it here. We just say to your unconscious mind, would it be okay to find a better way? Because we know there's a better. Because you know this isn't working at the moment. You can tell your unconscious mind, it feels shit, doesn't feel good. All this pressure just to work. In fact, when I was that client I was talking about earlier, when I said to her, wouldn't it be. Or how would it be? How would it be if you were to use all your skills, all your learnings, everything you've ever done, without the fear, how would you succeed? And she'd say, well, you would say. She did say. She said, I'd be even better, I'd succeed even more, and I would be happy in everything I did. And I know I couldn't be perfect. And, I know I'd learn from it because that's what it's all about, what we do. And it was that moment that she had that uh-huh, aha moment. It would be better to find a better way and without the old ways of anxiety and fear. So we enlist your unconscious mind. We say, I, know you're doing a great job for us. Thank you. You're trying so hard. But let's see if we can find a better way. And we know there's millions of better ways. There's a myriad of better ways. And when we find better ways, even one. And, I said there's millions. A myriad. I love that word, myriad. There's a richness I. You use word rich too much now. But there's a richness of better ways. There's better emotions. Just think being comfortable instead of being anxious, wouldn't that be better? Absolutely. Being a little bit confidence in your competence. You're not overconfident, but you're confident in your competence. Wouldn't that be better? Absolutely. Being able to access all your skills, your knowledge at the moment, wouldn't that be better? Absolutely. Being able to see clearly, wouldn't that be better? Absolutely. So just finding one of those ways would be better and you can have all of them. That.

 

 

Find times in your past when you've been successful and enjoyed doing it

 

So all we have to do to show you our Unconscious mind, there's better ways. And, how'you do that? Because so many people say, there you go, that's done. Just find better ways. But how the bloody hell did you do it? Well, CLU is here. Never let you go. Never let you go without a how simple way. A really. And in simplicity there's genius. You know that in simplicity there is genius. In simplicity there is genius. We simply find times in your past when you've been successful and enjoyed doing it. And it doesn't have to be in the same context, it really doesn't. It could be just doing anything. You know that time when time sometimes just stand still, you're m in the flow. But just times in the past, at any age, it doesn't have to be yesterday, could be at any time in the past when you've done something, turned out great. Maybe it was a struggle, maybe it was a little bit of a struggle to get there, but you got there and you felt great. You weren't frightened because you had that motivation, that inner confidence. You've got to do this. And if you can write them down, really do write them down. Because you what I say, and I know people sometimes say ``write the bloody stuff down all the time. Yeah, because you relive it when you write it down. And when you relive it, you feel those feelings again. And these are what we call counterexamples, counter examples to your issue. And when we relive each one, we're actually teaching our unconscious mind, look, here's a better way. And you feel those feelings and you can even think, well, what belief must I have had back then when I was doing that? Because I must have had a bloody positive belief about myself when I did that work. And if you can't think about belief, it doesn't come to you. I can make it up. Just say to yourself, what m mu ev must I have had? Because when you come up with, well, I must have had a belief about, I'm okay, I'm safe, I'm gon toa do this, I can succeed. Where did that belief just come from when you made it up? It's the belief or as close as damn it. So you know, you've got that belief and you can do more than one. Obviously you've got more than one, but because what happens when you start to thinking one, Another one comes along and another one comes along. So you need to write pretty quickly. But each one of those is another set of skillse they're nevernna be identical. It'snna be that recipe. Sometimes you more this, more that and you're showing your unconscious mind, this is it. and you can say to yourself with each one, what do we like to use these skills, these emotions, these behaviourss in place of the old way, what would we, we like to use these skills, behave as emotions in the future and imagine it, imagine it bloody happening. You see, when we ask that of the past, we learn from the past. And the thing is, when you think about those counter examples, what would happen if we were to anchor that feeling. When you thought about that time in the past and you see what you saw, hear what you heard and you feel those feelings. And as you feel those feelings, you squeeze a one finger and a thumb together just at the peak of that experience, peak of that feeling. And maybe you just say a word, maybe the belief you think you had, then let it go. And then think of the next one. And as you go through the next one, you feel that feeling. Because you see what you saw, hear what you heard, feel the feelings. As you feel those feelings, let them go so intense. And squeeze the same finger and thumb together, say that same word. You're now stacking an anchor. You're anchoring those feelings. And so when you think about what would it be like in the future, fire the anchor off. That would make the picture in your mind be so good because you're imaginine it happening the way you want it to happen. And Even if you look back at the past and you find that anger, you'd notice that memory changing. What would it be like in the past when I didn't feel good and I used these feelings instead. And your mind will play a movie of how it could have been. I do that my clients so many times going back in the past on a time in their life which wasn't pleasant. But notice how it could have been different with a different set of beliefs, different set of behaviours and emotions. And they go, well the anxiety was 8, Paul, and now it's down to 4. And I said well just add another one, another resource, okay, I'll get calmness in there. And they go do you know what Paul has's disappeared. The old feelings disappeared. And then we say to your unconscious mind, which was better? It's a no fucking brainer excuse swearing, but it is, it's a no brain'a unconscious mind. Because one thing it cannot, it cannot use the old way if there's a better way. Because it has to protect you. And all you have to do is write these things down. Imagine in the past, imagine in the future. If you had these things, try it on, try it on in the future. That's all you have to do. And you can flick between the two. If I did it this way, could do it that way. But just keep going back to those times, those counter examples of the feeling and firing off that anchor saying that word. And when you look at the future with that new set of resources and you're seeing how comfortable you are, how well it works, just say to your unconscious mind with your internal voice or shout it out loud this or something better. And sometimes, just sometimes, as you see that moving your mind of the future, of doing it the way you want to do it, just imagine getting in that picture and flick it into your past. Ooh, that's a different thing to do. And you see another one and you do it again. And as you see that, you flick that in your past. What are you doing? I'll tell you what you're doing. Not only are you feeling good, but you re ma. Your unconscious mind starts to think this is the way to do it because I've done it in the past. They're like made up memories of the future put into the past of you succeeding. It's bloody awesome. All these little things go go so well.

 

 

All I'm doing is guiding you and your unconscious mind to find better ways

 

So there you go. I hope you enjoyed that. I got a little bit bit fast, I believe. Speaking rapidly. I want to slow things down just for a moment. Just remember if you are or maybe were now because you d have done. Here's the thing about this podcast. I know as I was talking, you got to imagine those things. I know as I was talking you remembered those good times, those counter examples. Because he did. And I know when you put them into the future. You did. And I know when I said this or something better, your unconscious mind was listened to me because I was m speaking to both of you. You and your best friend inside. Because that's what we do here. Speak good things, encourage you. Just a guide. All I'm doing is guiding you and your unconscious mind to find better ways. It's up to you to take them. But I know your unconscious mind will. So no more pain. No more pain. Use those examples to find better way. That's all. You can never be afraid to fail again because you just got to do your best. End of. Have you done your best? I did. Was it good enough? It was good enough for me because it was my best. I couldn't do any better because I tried my best and people will get that. And if it wasn't quite as good, what do you do? You learn from the bloody place. You learn from that thing, that event. Well, how could I have done it better? But you're looking now, how could you do it better? Not the pain. You're looking to make more pleasure for yourself, a pleasurable life. Then you can start to wallow in pleasure. Wallow again. It's awesome. I, hope I've described this well enough for you to get it. I really do. If there's anything that I didn't do clearly or something that, you know, I didn't explain in the best possible way, please let me know. [email protected]. that's email address. I'll get it. And I'll come back to you personally and will, if need be, do another version of this episode as well to clear things up. If this is struck a chord with you in a way that. Well, if it's this easy, cluy. I got this. I got this other issue. Let me know what that is. Same email address [email protected]. And we'll create an episode just for you. But it's not just for you because it'll be for me and it'll be for everyone else. That's what we do, by the way. Anonymous. Remember, it's always anonymous. There you go. And if you would put as much effort in as I have in sharing this to every other bugger around, it would be awesome. Let's just keep sharing. Good stuff. I hope you found it good. I hope you found it interesting. Hope there's some golden. Well, there is golden nuggets in here. It's up to you to pick them out. The ones that suit you and the ones that resonate with you. So if you could do that, that would be awesome to share and share and share and trip over that subscribe button. Yeah, just press it as you go along.

 

 

Personal development unplugged. It's time to fly on your own

 

Anyway, until the next time, my friend. Time to fly. Warning, you are now leaving the unplugged mind of Paul Clough. It's time to fly on your own. Be brave, my friend. Personal development unplugged.

Personal development [self improvement] [self development] [NLP] [Hypnosis]