Fear of Failure

The narrative is so prevalent: women are afraid to fail. Women don’t take risks. We hear this all the time. Often as a part of the explanation of women’s lack of advancement. This episode addresses how gender bias impacts fear and how fear impacts women’s advancement. The discussion of FEAR is important because research shows that people just don’t perform as well in a culture fear.

With risk of course, is increased chance for failure and we all fear failure. Research shows that women have higher levels of fear of failure and take failure and negative feedback harder, in part, because failure has a more lasting negative impact on women. This episode helps explain the barriers and biases that impact how women’s mistakes are perceived and how this effects women’s fear of failure and willingness to take risks.

Too often explanations are oversimplified: women just don’t take risks, can’t take criticism, don’t have high self-efficacy, don’t have confidence – all explanations that don’t serve women and are really just the wolf in sheep’s clothing. Blame the women. Notice a pattern? Fix the women, fix the problem. So frustratingly resilient.

Women often feel the weight of our actions, and mistakes as having a negative impact on all women. Former US representative Clare Boothe Loose nailed it when she said “Because I am a woman, I must make unusual efforts to succeed. If I fail, no one will say, 'She doesn't have what it takes'; They will say, 'Women don't have what it takes”.

This episode calls out the inequity’s women experience that create fear and provides the tools to transcend; the skillset, mindset, and toolset to embrace our fears in order to be the fierce, resilient warriors we are meant to be.

Fear itself does not have to be a problem. In fact, as Mark Twain famously said “Courage is not the lack of fear. It is acting in spite of it.” Action in the face of fear is badass and this episode will help you flip the script from a story of women being more afraid – to a story of resilience, grit and anti-fragility.