Fola Daniel Adelesi: Stop Trying to Fail Safe

The fear of failure is eating deep into so many people and they don’t seem to even know it. From the first thing they do in the morning till the last thing they do at night you can tell that they are afraid to fail. And because they are so afraid to fail, they have adopted the fail safe syndrome.

What is it that you have chosen to do in life and how are you going about it?, Are you giving it all your energy? Have you completely thrown yourself into it? Is there any ounce of energy left in you that you still have not put into what you are doing? If there is any, why are you holding back?

Are there big ideas that crossed your mind and you simply threw them away because you thought those ones are too big and farfetched? In fact, you probably said that those ideas are unrealistic. You have told yourself that you are a realistic person, and because you are, you only want to do realistic things. When I hear people talk like that I know it’s just another way of saying I don’t have enough courage to pull those big stunts!

What will be the purpose of doing anything that you are doing in the first place if you are not going to put in all your best or try to do it big? Why will you not go all out and get your hands dirty to achieve the real results?

Back in the days when we did agricultural science in school they taught us what is called subsistence farming. And this kind of farming is just farming to feed yourself and your small family. Guess what? I looked up other words for subsistence and words like ‘survival and maintenance’ came up. That also tells me that many of you, or many of us, if that encourages you, are going about or ideas or businesses in the ‘subsistence – that is survival and maintenance – mode.

Stop trying to fail safe. For years you have been doing it in a small way and you have failed safe all this while. It is now time for you to step out boldly. Dare to hit new goals. Summon the courage to go beyond your locality. Stop stopping where you have always stopped!

If all you are doing does not stretch you in anyway then you are in the fail safe zone. If you have goals that you have hit so easily with no trace of near impossibility, you are also in the fail safe zone.

It will be nice for me to also mention why people easily go into the fail safe zone or why they adopt the strategy at all.

Fear
There are too many people out there who are afraid. They know what they want in life and what they can achieve but they are just too afraid. So right now, they are not even doing up to a quarter of what they can actually achieve in life. They have gotten a permanent address in the fail safe zone.

Unbelief
Fear can also lead to unbelief but there are a few people out there who are not afraid. They just don’t believe in doing anything big. They don’t believe in the things they have not seen. They want to see opportunities before making efforts. Things don’t work that way. Most times you have to make efforts before the opportunity comes just like most employees work before they get paid.

Lack of insight
I can see some who are not afraid and they don’t have unbelief in them but they lack insight. They are doing well in their little corner but if they had more insight they will be all over the world today. No matter how well you think you are doing, there is the need for you to always seek and gain more insight on how things can be done. Seek more insight on how you can improve as a person.

Focus on resources
If your entire focus in life is on your current resources and that is determining how you dream or plan for tomorrow then you will never be able to do much. If you are also running businesses strictly on the resources of today, how will the business ever go global? It is true that you have to plan within your resources but within the current resources, take out some that you can multiply in form of investment. Don’t limit yourself to your current resources today. You sometimes can even leverage on what other people have so you might be able to achieve much more than you thought while not spending as much as you ever imagined.

Making others your standards
It is one thing to make others your standard and it is another thing to make the entirely wrong set of people your standards. If they are people without aspirations in life then you will just do things with no extra aspiration in life. You become so comfortable in the pack and then you are always in the fail safe mode.

Conditioning to the environment
Some people start out well and they have all the energy or even fire within their bones. After a while they simply lose that steam. Rather than change the environment they just become conditioned to the environment. How do you know you are conditioned? It’s when they tell you this is how we do things here and that’s exactly what you are now doing. You are not doing anything better or challenging their myopic views anymore.

There is more in you than trying to just fail safe. Work at it, give whatever you are doing your best and stop trying to fail safe. If all you want to do is fail safe, why go through all the daily troubles of this life?

Photo Credit: Dreamstime | Frizzantine