Dreams –the only word which
evokes a kind of enthusiasm, passion, hope and determination coupled with
dedication. Many people have all that, it takes to accomplish a dream but one
thing that stops or enables them to reach the height of success is ‘FEAR’. Fear
of failure haunts people and, moreover it can also hamper their performance.
This so called Fear Factor in you comes in when you give undue importance to
‘ifs’ in your life. What if I don’t succeed in this competition? What if I
don’t get more marks than my friend? What if I did not get admission even
though I had given my best to studies?.....and the list goes endless, as life
is permanent tragedy. That is the reason ‘Happiness’ is precious.
Well, I won’t make the matter
more prolonged and confusing. Let’s see some examples which will clear all your
miseries, doubts, that are bogging you down.
Once one interviewer asked
Wasim Akram, the reason behind loosing the final match against Australia in
1999 world Cup. The great Wasim Akram replied that too many people were worried
about what would have happened if they lost. Rather than thinking of winning,
they were consumed by the fear of a possible reaction to defeat. Here Pakistan
team has set their mind. They build up illusion of their own ‘what if’ they
could not win and the reaction of Pakistani fans after it. Because of fear of
failure, they lost the match already before it even began. There was a famous
dialog in movie ‘Main Khiladi tu Anari’ by Akshaykumar to Saif Alikhan who was
also playing the co-actor role in that film. This is real life, here we have
only one take. So, “Do your best and forget the rest”. You can live without
food or
water for a day but without hope you will not live for a second.
Now let’s see another example
of Pakistan cricket team.
Imran Khan believes that key
quality of the leader is optimism. In his interview, he mentioned that , in
1992 worldcup, when Pakistan’s chance of reaching the final match was minimal,
Intikhab Alam, who was the team manager at that time, came to Imran to find out
his opinion on flight arrangements for the team to fly back home. Imran was
astonished and promptly told to come back when they actually lost. And we all
know the rest was history. Pakistan won that world cup. Here, Imran did not care
what other will say. He didn’t think for a fraction of a second it’s better to book a ticket as
our chances were minimal. He had no fear of losing the match. He does what his
heart tells him. He listens to the voice within him. His inner conscious tells
him to play for nobody but for yourself – for the happiness of yourself. He
does that. The objective of any task is to deliver peak performance, which is
often in our control and same was done by Imran Khan.
India’s badminton champion
Saina Nehwal puts it, ‘I want to be 100 % at every tournament. I’m not
concerned about rankings. If I win, my ranking will improve. My focus is on
improving my game and fitness. If that happens, everything else follows’.
Both the cases are reflecting
some facts of reality. In first case, Wasim Akram already lost hope, where
Imran Khan having a hope of win, and rest we know is history.
In India, people are very
afraid of failing. In the US, people fail and move on. Here, you try to find
ten reasons why you failed, everything except ‘you’. In the US, failure is like
a badge of honour. Oh, you have been to the war, you have been shot, you must
have been a good soldier! India has to develop that culture.
- Dr. Gururaj
Deshpande, Co- Founder , Sycamore Networks.
People are not getting success, due to fear of failure. Someone nicely
said that, “Failure is an event”, So, don’t take it seriously. Learn something
from your failure and move ahead. If you will quit by crying, then temporary
stamp of failure will be fixed as a permanent stamp. Just imagine after
continuous failure, if Amitabh Bachchan would have attempted for suicide, then
he would have been known as failure actor.
But he fought back and after KBC, his star is again shining till date.
Another main reason of failure
is “what others say”. Sometimes it’s very hard to understand that, we are
living our lives for us or others. Why we should think for others, if we know
that we are right and because of this our future will be safe then why should
we think for others. And if we failed for that task, then it’s only our
decision, so we will never regret for it. Just think, because of your near and
dear, you quit the task, and after that you realised that, it was my wrong
decision then? Faith is something beyond
intellect. Belief is the only jewel of life that adds up an everlasting hope
which ultimately compels you to achieve the incredible.When a person has built
his success on pillars of unshakeable faith, and evergreen enthusiasm, he is
the person who will be” happy” even when he fails and most importantly “humble”
even when he wins it! This is because you are doing it from within. You are
going with the flow of your heartbeats. When you do things with all your
passionate heart, you get rid of fear to fail because fear is a concept
originated from our mind and not our heart.
Secondly when you do things for
your happiness, for your own pleasure, the desire to win or the desire to
compete with the crowd automatically fades away. Ultimately you reach at a
height where there is no desire to win and no fear to lose. Just keep Believing
and keeping performing your best on this stage is called” Life”. You have to
keep looking ahead however steep and unlikely the outcome. Remember one thing,
final score of innings will be calculated on the last ball not the first ball.
So, keep patience. Don’t waste your time, INSTEAD invest your time. People with a fear to fail
shall never win, and people with a desire to always win and compete shall never
understand the depths of life. But person with neither desire of winning nor a
fear of losing will not only experience the depths of life but shall also taste
the beauty of it – that is the reason he will be ‘UNSTOPPABLE’.
