Fear of Failure or Courage to Thrive? Two Simple Strategies to Prevail Anyway

As my Year in Books from 2025 demonstrates, I really got into fantasy this year. Truth be told, I've struggled to get into fiction. I've been a voracious reader of non-fiction. My mind feeds off of business books, self-help, and memoirs. My mind loves to be in charge so much that I've struggled to see the value in fiction. Where non-fiction has facts, fiction has stories. And stories are profoundly compelling. (If my logic brain would just get out of the way!) But I digress... 

In my reading, I came across a nugget of wisdom and immediately thought of my clients. It occurred to me that others might not apply the fictional wisdom the way I would, so I wanted to share an explanation. 

The book is Mistborn: The Final Empire. In it, the character Sazed counsels the main character. He says: “Belief isn't simply a thing for fair times and bright days… What is belief—what is faith — if you don't continue in it after failure?” In the context of the book, Sazed is a sort of religious scholar. He and the main character are talking about the failure of their plan and the death of the main character's mentor. 

While plans failing can be part of my work, I deal more frequently with the fear of failure. When starting a business, we often don't have a ton of confidence. Or maybe we do, but it's tenuous. We know starting a business isn't easy. We're afraid we don't have what it takes. Or maybe we have had these things but our resolve falters because things don't go to plan. We end up doubting ourselves, and we fear failure. And as Sazed points out, belief and failure are intertwined.

About Fear, Belief, and Failure

Fear is an emotion; you can literally feel it. Belief is even more ephemeral than an emotion. Belief is like a human version of an operating system. Most people don't know there's a problem until the computer crashes. When a belief in something external breaks down, we can rebuild without making edits to our sense of self. However, self-reflexive beliefs are integral to our sense of self. They're so core to our being that they're difficult to acknowledge, much less change. In short, your belief in yourself is sticky and difficult to even be aware of. And that doesn't make this impossible! 

Strategy #1: Practice

First of all, you're going to practice in the straight away what you’ll use in the curve (as Molly Lannon Kenny has been known to say). No matter when you're reading this, develop a method to cultivate your own belief in yourself. This will be harder if you're in "the curve," and it might feel superfluous if you're in "the straight away." Either way, learn what you can have confidence in. Check in with your self-talk and make sure it's celebrating what you're good at. For those of us "realists" out there, make sure your pragmatic perspective isn't downplaying your strengths. Dive more into thought work to make changes where necessary. 

Strategy #2: Faking Faith

Secondly, you're going to employ this terrible piece of advice: "fake it till you make it." This is terrible advice because I believe it's actually just lazy shorthand. You don't actually need to fake any skills. You've already got the skills. You've built them up over time, and those are real. You might not have done this exact thing before, but logically, you can accomplish it. The thing you're "faking" is your faith in yourself. On some level, you know you can do this, but you need to fake the confidence so that you actually get through it. 

Does Failure Even Matter?

The wild thing about believing in yourself is that when we stop doubting ourselves, we can arrive at a place where failure is no longer relevant. That doesn't mean failure doesn't happen, just that its significance is different. If things don't go to plan, you have faith that you'll come up with a new plan. You believe in yourself, and so you'll keep going and keep doing the things you're good at. If you're doing that, then you'll never fail even if a given project does. And I think that's the real lesson Sazed was intending to teach.