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I’ve learned an awesome philosophy from one of my mentors recently. If practiced daily, it can allow you to enjoy any activity or situation you come across in life without the burden of fear, or any negative feeling and emotion; embarrassment, regret, etc. It’s especially perfect for those situations that you have always wanted to experience, but in the end, your fear wins you over and you go home.
It’s called Pre-Acceptance of Failure. It’s simple yet extremely effective if used correctly. Before you attempt to do anything, and it could be anything (playing a game or sport, approaching someone), allow yourself to pre-accept failure; acknowledge that you might lose, might get rejected, basically fail. When you realize and accept this, you know you might fail, the fear of outcome is no longer a burden. The fear of outcome will not drive you nuts, make you not concentrate, make you mess up and choke. Instead, you can completely concentrate and simply do the best you can do, be the best you can be.
When you let go the fear of outcome; not knowing what might happen, you are free to just do your best. Result does not matter to you, the destination is pointless to you. What simply matters now is the experience, the journey. You always hear “It's the journey, not the destination” for a reason, and this is why.
So once you have given up your fear of outcome, the next and final step is to remove doubt. Sure you have eliminated fear of outcome, but you might find yourself doubting your skills, whatever. You have to remove doubt, and replace it with commitment. Picture fear as a break, and doubt holds you back. You eliminated the break, so whats left is either doubt or commitment. Commitment is complete absence of fear. So after you have eliminated the fear of outcome, all you have to next is go into whatever situation you go into with full commitment. The commitment of “I’ll do the best I can, win or lose(success or fail). It's the journey, not the destination.”
I have personally been practicing this daily. You could use this philosophy for situations basically every minute. You find yourself competing in a sport, wanting to approach a person; stranger, friend or family.
I found myself playing basketball with friends, and the fear of losing really catches up to me, and usually affects my game for the best or the worse. If I lose, I am pissed. But I’ll tell you what. When you forget about the result, pre-accept you might fail; you are freed from any fear of outcome, and you can just have fun and actually enjoy the experience, win or lose. It's an amazing feeling.
Finally do the thing you have always wanted to do. Let your boss know how you feel, approach a distant friend, any situation that you have stopped yourself from doing because of your fear of the outcome. It’s a blast and ultimate high when you can enjoy an activity with absolutely no fear - we’ve all been there. Imagine doing it everyday though. I encourage you to try out the Pre-Acceptance of Failure, and let me know how it goes for you.
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15 RESPONSES TO "YOU'LL BE HAPPIER WHEN YOU STOP WORRYING SO MUCH ABOUT HOW EVERYTHING WILL TURN OUT"
Results do matter. Most people don't just do things to have something to do. Most do something that will make some difference in their lives, and the direction of their lives depends on the results of these activities.
Your life might be a journey, but the results of your activities both select the choices available to you and the path you follow.
This is a concept that I so used to.
Getting into situation accepting a 'No', developing BATNA & knowing what are the objection before going in. Lots of Sales situation need to have that mindset.
A few thing that can be developed
- Instinct to have plan B, Plan C & Plan B of Plan B
- Taking initiative
- Recognizing weakness of a plan
Beware of pitfalls
- Accepting plan B before even trying
- Fight once then flee to plan B
- Relying on plan B after 1st obstacle of plan A
(I have to constantly deal with all 3)
Even though there are disadvantages, it's useful but use with caution. I think this is a good ways to start developing a strategic/tactical mind.
Ronnie - I think this philosophy can really free up a lot of your energy.
Also, when pre-accepting failure, I find it helpful to think of the worst thing that can happen if you fail. A lot of times it's nothing more than hurt pride - and that's not a great reason for not doing things you'd like to do.
Thanks!
I practice the same philosophy but I never heard it expressed in these terms. Nice explanation.
On a side note, it is interesting how fear and failure can lead us to bad outcomes. My friend has high cholesterol and is overweight but he didn't want to change his diet for fear. He was worried that he'd fall short on proteins if he ate more fruits and vegetables. So out of fear of an uncertain failure, he chose a path that's guaranteed to fail! (Plus, his protein fear is unjustified...)
@Mike, the reason this philosophy works (even on the big things)is because you've decided that you would rather fail and move on (possibly to a plan B or just the rest of your life) than to stay immobilized by fear. Once that decision is made, the fear is no longer a part of the issue and you can focus more on creating success.
There may be times when you decide that staying where you are is better than failure, and that's ok, but this method puts that decision up front so you can be honest about it.
@Ian, the pitfalls you are describing seem like symptoms of fearing success. Anybody got any hints on how to handle that while simultaneously pre-accepting failure?
I recently came to the conclusion that I worry about a lot of stuff. I'm not sure if it's genetic or something I learned over the years, but I definitely need to try a different approach. One thing I do know, things usually seem to have a way of working themselves out and all of that worrying is typically for not.
Thanks for sharing the philosophical perspective.
Cute concept, but a little sugary for the real world don't you think?
Sure, this is a great philosophy for low-stakes situations; ask the cutie at the bar for a date, submit your short story for peer review, try the mystery sandwich at your local deli.
But, let's be honest, these are not the situations that keep people up at night. The fear that cripples people are in situations with serious consequences if they go badly. Telling your parents you're gay, telling your boss you're thinking about quitting, admitting you've lied to a friend.
Results *DO* matter in these situations. It's not about a journey, it's about your life. I'm certainly not saying you shouldn't directly confront difficult situations like this (on the contrary, it will make you a stronger person for it), but "pre-acceptance of failure" is not a viable solution for people living in the real world.
Nothing against the poster whatsoever, but this concept reeks a bit of positive-thinking, new age self-help blather that feels a little disingenuous to me.
@ Mike: Thanks for your comments. But the main reason I wrote this isn't to be cute or because I'm "new age". And its not really positive thinking at all. I mean, your pre-accepting that you might fail: thats kinda negative....
I should also say the real title of my post, not edited, is "A secret to enjoying any situation Fearlessly". I'm not promoting positive thinking. I'm promoting for you to be able to stuff you want without fear controlling you.
Mike, I have used this to bring up important conversations with my girlfriend, and even to approach my father, which has never been easy for me. I have used this for "real world" situations. Work, school, you name it.
And your statement: "Results *DO* matter in these situations. It’s not about a journey, it’s about your life". Matt, if you feel your life is not a journey, but a destination, or results, thats totally cool.
But that doesn't mean its fearless living, which Im trying to promote. You can waste sleep at night fearing a situation, or you can eliminate that fear with this simple trick.
Thanks for the comment though. If you want, you can email me about it.
Mike, there are still ways to deal with those fears. A key step for me is to identify what parts of any interaction are under my control, and accept that I can't control the other parts.
Beyond that, let's take a look at the examples you provided.
1) Telling your parents that you're gay. If your parents don't accept gay people, they already don't accept you. They just don't know it yet. But they're already the type of people who reject others on this basis. That's who they are, not who you are. (The generic "you"--I have no idea about the specific you.)
2) Telling your boss you're thinking about quitting. Why on earth would you do this? If you want to stay, talk about making changes where you are. If you want to leave, leave. But how do you benefit from saying "I think I might quit"?
3) Admitting you've lied to a friend. What was the lie? Does admitting to it help your friend in any way? Does keeping it secret hurt the friend? Will telling give you a sense of relief but just make them feel worse? Or is "feeling worse" something you should take responsibility for? (Yes, we should be honest from the start. I'm not saying that lying to friends--or anyone else, really--is okay. But be sure that you're not just following one bad action with another.)
I agree - living a free-from-fear life allows us to reach our highest potential.
Be free!
I think living free from fear is really about learning how to deal with fear. If fear is related to pain, how would you know if your hand needed medical aid if it wasn't hurting?
Our experiences takes us through many things, and learning how to move from one experience to the next requires a bit of understanding, a bit of faith, and a bit of a just-do-it attitude.
Once that initial fear passes, it becomes something else and our lives are transformed.
I felt this post was necessary because I'm betting my whole life to attain a new one. http://www.leapwalking.com/2008/07/27/moving-to-london-and-how-everyone-...
Ronnie, the point isn't to pre-accept failure, it's to be bold. Focus on the positive side and that outcome will be most likely. Focus on the "not fearing the negative" outcome usually brings the negative outcome.
I'm not pushing "The Power of Positive Thinking" as much as self-confidence. Decide what you want, know the best outcome will happen, and work at nothing else. Your desired result will arrive.
Pre-acceptance of failure focuses each person on what failure might look like. Much better use of time to visualize what success looks like.
@Will
That's the point; When handling a NOs with a saftey net, the risk averse/neutral might perfer to use the safety net & avoid the risk. This approach/concept has can lead to fear of success.
I might sound negative, but do believe this approach help improves accessment of risk impact & a really good way to handle risk that is critical points to implement a plan, vision, career or life.
This philosophy got me my wife.
I automatically assumed that she wouldn't want to dance with me when I asked.
She didn't.
So I asked again.
We've been married 14 years.
Hey Ronnie:
I live in the new-agey woo-woo world of Marin County, where so many people spout so much positivity it can be a little nauseating.
But what you've shared is not new-agey. To me, what you've shared gets our big fat egos out of the way. Ego wants us to be the winner, the best, perfect. It doesn't tolerate less.
But ego also is full of fear that we'll be less. It loves to create unnecessary stress.
So, to me, you've got a prescription for taking ego out of the way so we can just speak to ourselves in the most caring language possible, that of "Hey, do the best you can."
I'm riding my first century (100 km) bike ride on Saturday. Thanks for this tool to help me. If I can make peace with taking the whole day to finish, then I can just commit to doing my personal best...and let those speedier cyclists pass me by.
Cool!
-- Susan
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