Atychiphobia: Fear of failure
Facing failure is never a pleasant feeling, but the common fear of failure is different from Atychiphobia.
Atychiphobia refers to a presistent feeling of anxiety, episodes of excessive fear that the sufferer feels unable to initiate any plan. In some cases, this syndrome may be related to perfectionism, because they often have high expectations, so when they encounter failure, they are moste likely to feel stress. This directly affects mental health and causes mental illnesses such as anxiety disorder or depression, etc.
According to the DSM-5 (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) Atychiphobia is not yet recognized as an official psychological syndrome. However, that is not why we can take it lightly, because it still has a relatively large impact on each person's work and life. In essence, the fear of failure has the same mechanism as the fear of spiders.
Where does the "fear of failure" come from?
There are many causes for this Atychiphobia. However, to determine the exact cause requires a lot of information and specific diagnosis. Experiencing a past that was challenging and negative can also be a cause. For those who have experienced repeated failures or suffered with severe failures (insolvency, bankruptcy, etc.), deep trauma can form an obsession, excessive fear of failure.
People with Atychiphobia often have psychological and psychiatric problems such as depression, anxiety disorders or other phobic anxiety disorders. This can be influenced by genetics in the family history. In addition, how to raise and educate children is also extremely important. If a child is constantly criticized or unsupported for a long time, they are mor likely to become obsessed with "success", feeling that they are living up to the expectations of those around them and they must not make mistakes.
The fear of failure can also form due to social pressure, when going to school, there is pressure to achieve, growing up is a financial pressure, success and peer-pressure...
Fear is just a feeling
Although it is a psychological syndrome, this fear is observable both emotionally and physically. When faced with an opportunity, your body begins to react with rapid heartbeat, chest tightness, tremors, dizziness, lightheadedness, sweating, and digestive problems or feelings of anxiety, avoidance, anger at yourself and feeling powerless.
Not only that, but the fear of failure affects people in their way of thinking and judging themselves, saying: "I don't have the skills, I don't have the knowledge to achieve it", ... you feel guilty if you can't do things, like someone will be disappointed. It is these thoughts that make you feel like hiding and no longer motivated to work hard for what you love. Because you blindly believed. This is a way to reduce your "protection" from the uncomfortable emotions, dissapointments, and pain of facing failure.
If you allow the "fear of failure" to haunt you for a long time, it will make you lack confidence in yourself, doubt in your own abilities. Since then, the motivation for development is low, and self-esteem is also somewhat reduced. This syndrome causes feelings of worthlessness, regret and shame. But after all, fear is just a feeling, not who you are, learn to be sober and gently separate yourself from the fear that is manipulating you.
The important thing is to learn something from failure, not to try to be an "undefeated" person.
Getting rid of the fear of failure is not an easy thing, everything takes time and especially your pwn determination. To overcome your worries, you need to stop imagining the bad outcomes you are thinking about, or at least if you think about possible failures, come up with a plan and solution to prevent it. Avoiding that, instead of just stopping in fear and doing nothing, it also helps you worry less and feel more secure.
Also don't focus on things beyond your control. Of course, no one wants to fail, but life will always have variables that we can't calculate. So, instead of worrying about aspects of the situation that you can't handle, focus your energy on the things you can do to the best of your ability.
Like it or not, failure is a part of your life and can be an important opportunity to learn and gain new skills. Sure, every mistake has consequences, but the important thing is that you learn from failure, not try to become and undefeated person.
References: Very Wellmind, psychology journal.
