I don’t know about you, but I hate failing.  There’s something so final about it, even if I know I’ll just get up and keep going (what else is there to do besides give up?)  Fear of failure is rooted in self-worth and often grows when we don’t see ourselves the way that God sees us.

Here are a few ways that you can overcome a fear of failure in your life.

1. Give up trying to meet your own or others’ expectations.  Usually, our fear of failure manifests itself in trying to not fail ourselves or others.  Last week I wrote about overcoming the fear of men.  Giving up on others’ – and our own – expectations doesn’t mean that we aren’t responsible, it means that we give ourselves grace when we don’t achieve what we thought we could.

2. Give up your own righteousness.  You can’t possibly be perfect on your own.  That only comes through faith in Christ (Romans 3:9, 22).  So there’s no need for you to super-stress over every action you make in an attempt to be perfect.  Lean into God’s righteousness and let that direct your actions.

3. Give yourself a goal that’s reasonable and achievable, and then follow through on it.  Make sure it is very much achievable and specific as well as getting you closer to a bigger goal.  For example, you might read one verse of Scripture every day, eat healthy one day a week, or send at least two people you love texts like “Hey, just thinking about you” every week.  Simply achieving this goal will grow confidence (instead of failure) inside of you.

4. Redefine your idea of “success.”  For many years, I gauged success by how much I could accomplish in a day.  That’s a really good way to burn out as well as find yourself driven by a fear of failure.  I had to come to recognize that my definition of “success” was useless – it’s God’s definition of success that matters (1 Samuel 16:7).

5. Find God’s definition of success in your life.  This is actually easy: It’s simply following His leading throughout the day and putting His priorities as your priorities (Proverbs 16:3, Psalm 37:4, Proverbs 3:1-5, Romans 12:2, etc.).  (Not sure how to hear God’s voice?  Read this post.)  To be honest, at the end of the day, I’d rather hear Him say “well done” than get things done.

If you have any other strategies for overcoming the fear of failure, feel free to post them in the comments below!