"Now you love me as a loser, but you're worried that I just might win"

This week I came across the following Thomas Edison quote in a discussion document about innovation

“I have not failed, I have just found 10,000 ways that don’t work”

Two day later and I am in a coaching session with a client trying to help them to reassess their fear of failure in order to assist them to become unstuck in driving a new initiative.

Fearing failure can become such a huge block, turning bright and successful people into statues of procrastination and paralysis.

As their coach one should definitely avoid the General Patton approach which involves slapping the person in the face and screaming “coward” at them - that nearly got Patton sidelined for the rest of WWII.

So what can you do?

Firstly you need to respect, relate to and acknowledge the clients’s fear of failure – such feelings serve a useful purpose in our lives and generally helps us all avoid huge personal disasters (unfortunately there is a growing section of our society who have been born without any appropriate sense of failure and they all seem to end up on reality TV talent shows).

What next? I then tend to use a combination of the following questions to raise awareness and help the client reframe their fear;

“Have you failed in the past and what did it do to you?” – we have all had failures but over time we learn and grown from them - we survive - we were not forced out of our town or made to wear a bell around our neck – life goes on and successes still continue to happen to us.

“If you could let go of perfection, what is success for you in this venture?” – accepting that you are never going to achieve perfection - on the golf course, or in every sales pitch you make. or in every bit of marketing you write, - is often so liberating, and allows the person to accept new standards and generate momentum again.

“Think of your many initiatives that have been successes, Did you ever fear failure when you started them?” Working with clever successful people means that the coach can always remind them of their previous successes, some of which would have had a risk of failure initially.

Finally, a question I always find helps raise awareness and generates options; “If I was in your shoes, what advise would you give me?”

These questions are not about dismissing the client’s fear of failure – they are about challenging it, normalising it and reframing it in terms of previous experiences and what is success.

Thanks to Leonard Cohen for today’s title.

Welcome thoughts, ideas and insults as always