worldview and perspective on Fear of Failure

Our business in the world is not to succeed to but to continue to fail in good spirits.

A common trait of human beings is a fear of failure. Most of us find ways of coping with it, but whenever failure rears its ugly head, it’s difficult not to experience the sting of feeling like we are...

George Herbert Mead, an influential early 20th-century sociologist, coined the term “generalized other” to describe the vague group we consider when shaping our actions. How often do we behave a certa...

Living in a society governed by technique conditions us to believe that in every way life is easier than it ever has been. Technique is the use of rational methods to maximize efficiency, and we...

Suspicion always haunts the guilty mind; The thief doth fear each bush an officer.

Remember that fear always lurks behind perfectionism. Confronting your fears and allowing yourself the right to be human can, paradoxically, make you a far happier and more productive person.

Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.

I have learned over the years that when one’s mind is made up, this diminishes fear; knowing what must be done does away with fear.

Fear and control are the basis for all human religions. From this common beginning the paths diverge dramatically, splinter, multiply, and finally terminate in different places. But each one is an att...

Shame is the most powerful, master emotion. It's the fear that we're not good enough.

Where shame is, there is also fear.

Medical literature is replete with case reports of patients dying, not from actual illness, but from believing they were sick, from the fear they were going to die.

Perfectionism is not a way to avoid shame. Perfectionism is a form of shame.

We should aim for rational confidence in these sorts of pursuits because certainty is a mere will-o’-the-wisp. Finite minds simply can’t pull it off. Though the distinction between aiming at certainty...

Many Christians . . . find themselves defeated by the most powerful psychological weapon that Satan uses against Christians. This weapon has the effectiveness of a deadly missile. Its name? Low self-e...

I've had a lot of worries in my life, most of which never happened.

In this excerpt from his book Faith in the Shadows, pastor and author Austin Fischer shares a surprising truth about the need to be vulnerable with our own faith if we are likely to have a positive im...

People exaggerate their confidence in their plans - something we call the planning fallacy... The existence of the plan tends to induce overconfidence.

As the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom, so the denial of God is the height of foolishness.

Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid.

A typical response to threat and burden is to want to flee it. It’s evacuation as the cure for trouble. If only I could get away is our mantra. Then I would be safe. Then I could enjoy my life. But wh...

I suspect that this is the most important thing I’ve said in all my interviews and talks as well as in this book. It’s a truth that applies to more than writing. It applies to anything that is importa...

You cannot expect people to seriously consider your idea without accepting the possibility that they will challenge it. Accepting that process of engagement as the terrain of leadership liberates you ...

Holy God, You are the anchor amidst our fears. You know the sins we can’t even admit to ourselves. You show your faithfulness even when we reject You. You offer grace even when we offer judgment. Forg...

One day, a house-dog, standing at the window, was barking his head off at a passing mailman. The dog's owner, irritated, asks the dog, "Why do you always bark at that poor mailman?" The ...

Know yourself and you will have a wholesome fear of God; know him and you will also love him.

Core beliefs can be hard to change because they’ve generally been with us for a long time, and we assume that they’re true. Perhaps the biggest obstacle to changing our core beliefs is that they are s...

Doubt is really the felt tension that exists between a belief you have and a contrary claim you do not yet believe…Simply put, doubt is that experience of one of our beliefs seeming like it might be f...

Gracious God, we confess that we are often dissatisfied with our lives. We recognize the gap that exists between what we are and what we want to be. Lord, like the woman at the well, we know our failu...

The man of pseudo-faith will fight for his verbal creed but refuse flatly to allow himself to get in a predicament where his future must depend upon that creed being true. He always provides himself w...