Somebody SAVE me!

“The greatest barrier to success is the fear of failure.” ~ Sven Goran Eriksson

The fear of failure is a sub-conscious courage eater. It will rob you of passion, paralyze your mind, and urge you to give the responsibility for success to someone, or something else.

Have you ever felt that thing in the back of your conscious mind that wants you to run away, the moment you see the possibility that you could fail? We all have it. I think it's purpose is to keep us safe, which would be fine, if we still lived at our parent's houses with everything we need supplied by someone else in a perfectly safe world that was free from disease, pain, and suffering of any kind.

Since that is not the world we live in, and since our world is not SAFE. We have to come to grips with the reality that there is no avenue of retreat, we must arm ourselves. We must prepare mentally to live in the absence of safety, to live in a dangerous world with the possibility of failure forever lurking at the back of our subconscious mind, telling us to retreat.

What happens when the fear of failure is nagging you, and your subconscious is telling you to retreat? Our first instinct is often to scream "Save me" to anyone willing to listen.

• Business owners yell "save me" to marketing firms and coaches
• Mom's yell "save me" to school programs and babysitters
• Personal finances yell "save me" to financial planners or bankruptcy attorneys
• People in need yell "save me" to anyone willing to listen
• Sometimes big businesses yell "save me" to government
• Sometimes government yells "save me" to taxes

Don't get me wrong I am all for asking for help, collaboration, gaining partners, and teams. The difference between asking for help and yelling "save me" is this; asking for help implies that I am emotionally and mentally keeping the responsibility for my success and I simply want to team up, or ask for your help as a part of the effort to succeed.

Whereas; Yelling "save me" implies that I am giving you the responsibility for MY SUCCESS. And this will allow the fear of failure to destroy you. We can never give the responsibility for our own success to anyone. We can delegate, we can collaborate, we can orchestrate, and we can simply get help. But, if we give the responsibility for success to someone else, we have lost the war. We have retreated, and we have lost all influence in our success, guaranteeing failure.

So next time you feel that fear of failure begin to creep up on you, stop and make a plan. Stop and think about how to attack. Become even that much more committed to owning the responsibility you have to your own success.

And only then, ask for help and collaborate towards your success with marketing firms, coaches, attorneys, school programs, friends, government, and anyone who can help.

Don't be a victim to the fear of failure, be an OWNER of your own success.

Owning it daily,

Jon Bohm