If you knew in your heart you could have anything you want, do anything you want, or be anything you wanted, what would you go for? A new house? New car? Would you ask someone on a date that you wouldn’t have approached in a million years? Would you start a new business? Expand the one you already have? Move it in new directions? What? What would you do? What could you be? What could you have? What would your life look like?

So why don’t you? What keeps you from going for the things you’d like to have, to be, to do? Fear of failure. Nothing more. Doubting that you have what it takes to get it done. Spending your time wondering, “What if I can’t do it?” or thinking, “I’ve never done that before, I probably can’t do that.”

So you quit thinking about it. You let your dream die, or worse, you quit dreaming at all. Every day, you die a little more inside because you’re afraid.

It doesn’t have to be that way. You don’t have to be afraid any more. You can dream again, you can have, be, do whatever you want! Is your mouth watering a little? Do you see a little glimmer of hope? Good!

Conquering your fear of failure

First of all, understand this: the fear of failure isn’t a natural fear. It’s something you’ve learned; something you’ve trained yourself to do. You’ve made your own rules that tell you when you should think you’ve failed.

So change the rules.

You can do that. You can change the rules—after all, you’re the one that made them. What are your rules for deciding you’ve failed? Not reaching a goal? Not accomplishing something you’ve wanted to accomplish?

Maybe you should decide that they only way you can fail is by giving up. That as long as you’re moving toward your goal, you’re not failing. You may not accomplish the outcome you’re hoping for, but you’ve learned something in the process. You’re learning to talk to people, to assert yourself, to build something, to do something, maybe to learn a new skill. How can that be called failure?

What would you do if you KNEW you couldn’t fail? Would it change what you go for?

What causes a person to be cheerful, upbeat, positive and enthusiastic when it may seem to us that have no reason to be that way?

Probably because they have a goal—a star to shoot for.

Have you noticed yourself turning into a robot? You get up, go to work, come home, watch some tv, maybe read some blogs, go to bed, then do it again the next day. You’re moving through your life taking things as they happen, one day at a time, kind of like a hamster running in its wheel.

If that describes you, I’d bet that you can’t answer this simple question: “What do you want to do, to have, or to be in the next 5 years?”

The Power of Goals

Having a goal out there somewhere, something to move toward, is one of the secrets of happiness. When life seems the roughest, when you awake to a gray, cloudy, bleak morning, having a goal to strive for will help you to break through the blues and give you a reason to say to yourself, “Stay with it! Keep going!” It’s the light at the end of the tunnel, your ray of sunshine, your reason to keep slogging through the mud until you hit dry ground.

That’s why we should revisit our goals on a regular basis, why we need to be certain and clear what we’re moving toward, what we’re shooting for.

If you find yourself feeling depressed or lethargic, take a look at your goals. If you don’t have any, get some. A goal you can be excited about can save you.