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6 Ways Your Attempts To Avoid Failure Actually Increase The Likelihood That You'll Fail

This article is more than 8 years old.

Imagine this scenario: You’re about to give a big presentation. There’s an eager audience waiting to hear what you have to say. You believe in your idea and you know that this presentation could lead to big opportunities.

If that scenario were real, what type of mindset would you likely be in? What thoughts would be running through your head?

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Are you focused on success? Or, are you trying to avoid failure? There’s a big difference.

If you were focused on success, you might be thinking about how you’ll deliver your presentation in a way that will resonate best with the audience. If, however, you were focused on avoiding failure, you might only be thinking about how to get through your presentation without embarrassing yourself.

Avoidance Goals Vs. Approach Goals

The way you think about challenges greatly influences your performance. Research shows that if your goal is to avoid failure, you’ll actually increase the chances that you’re going to fail.

Here are six ways your attempts to avoid failure will decrease your chances of success:

1. You’ll persist longer on an impossible task.

This might seem like a strength at first. After all, don’t you want to keep working hard when a task is really tough?

The problem is, if you’re intent on avoiding failure, you won’t recognize when to give up. If you’re business is failing, you might insist that you keep going until you’ve lost everything, rather than walk away before things get really bad.

2. You’ll experience more stress.

The desire to avoid failure causes grater emotional distress. Researchers report people with avoidance goals experience more intense feelings of sadness, anger and anxiety during a difficult task.

It’s really hard to make good decisions when you’re feeling really emotional. Your intense feelings make it difficult to think clearly, which can cause you to grow even more frustrated and upset. Ultimately, your emotional arousal could harm your performance and increase your risk of failure.

3. You’ll waste time and resources.

If you’re intent on fitting a square peg into a round hole, you’ll waste a lot of time, energy and mental power. At some point, you’ll exhaust yourself. And the worst part is, despite your insistence that you must continue, you might not make any progress.

4. You won’t recognize that failure is inevitable.

There are lots of "inspirational" quotes and slogans touting messages like, “Failure isn’t an option.” But telling yourself that you can’t fail will prevent you from recognizing when you’re on a sinking ship.

5. You’re more likely to keep repeating the same solutions.

Sometimes, the best way to reach a big goal is to find a way around an obstacle, rather than try to force your way through. But, insisting you can’t fail could prevent you from seeing alternative solutions to your problem. People who focus on success are more likely to find creative solutions that will help them reach their ultimate goals.  

6. You’ll miss out on new information.

You may need to make adjustments or change course if you’re getting stuck. But if all you can think about is, “I can’t fail,” you’ll get tunnel vision. You’ll be more attentive to negative information and you might overlook information that could help you move forward productively.

Think About Success

Ultimately, your mindset about success and failure plays a large role in the outcome. The more you insist that failure isn't an option, the more likely you'll be fail.

Your fears can easily turn your fear into a self-fulfilling prophecy. So the next time you’re faced with a challenge, keep your focus on how you’re going to succeed, not how you’re going to escape failure. Instead of thinking, "I don't want to lose," say, "I want to win" and you'll skyrocket your chances of success.

Amy Morin is a psychotherapist, speaker, and the author of the bestselling book 13 Things Mentally Strong People Don't Do.