Fear of failure seems to be built-in instinct for most people. They do only those things in which they are good, they avoid the things which shows their lack of skills.
Most people afraid to accept difficult challenges and avoid those situations. They think failure is a bad thing. They do not view failure in positive light and think it as end. Even though they know it is not end, but they feel like it is end.
Failure is not Defeat
Failure is not same thing as defeat. Failure is temporary, defeat is permanent. Failure is something that you could not completely control, defeat is something you choose, permanent acceptance of failure.
First step in letting go of fear of failure is to realize that it is not end. Life is difficult, you will face a lot of difficulties but it is up to you to decide whether you want to get back up again or not. it is up to you to realize the joy and enjoyment of an accomplishment which comes after achieving something very difficult.
As as software developer, we develop softwares, which is very difficult, We face lots of challenges while building, we remain persistent with development and eventually cross all challenges to launch software. Same thing happen when we learn any new programming language, we face many infrastructure and programming issues before writing first “hello world” program. Do you remember feel of joy and accomplishment, you felt once “hello world” is printed on-screen. Now think that if you gave up at the very first moment you faced first issue, Would you able to learn any new technology or make any software?
Failure is a Road of Success
Instead of fearing from failure, we should embrace it, it is a path of success. When we fail in something, we learn from that, we identify growth areas and work on those and hopefully grow. Our brains are trained in work in this way.
Think about video game, when first time you started the game, you were knocked down in few minutes, did you stop playing, NO, you kept trying and finally you crossed levels.
Same thing applies in life, You should learn to embrace failure, expect it and accept it. Sometimes you should try to do difficult things where you are all guaranteed to fail. Sometimes you need to be willing to put yourself in an uncomfortable situation that will force you to grow. Sometimes you need to go out to find those situations knowing that the harder you steer your ship to failure, the stronger wind of success will blow you in opposite direction.
if you really want to grow. you should realize that it is okay to fail. it is okay to make mistakes. Failures are unavoidable, you need to develop habit to learn from those failures to grow.