A couple months ago I did a very informal survey via twitter questioning peoples’ greatest fears. By far the most common response was fear of failure.

I’ve spent some time thinking about that fear. It’s interesting because it’s certainly at the top of my fear list.

A matter of fact, I have an area of my life right now I sense God calling me to take a step of faith and trust Him.  I know God could use this.  I know lives could be impacted.  All I need to do is step out in faith, but I’m embarrassed to admit the fear of failure is keeping me from totally giving of myself.

I don’t get it. Why do I fear failure so much? It’s not like it’s that uncommon in my life. Why do you fear it so much? We all fail on a fairly regular basis.

I think it has something to do with control.

Failure is a reminder that control is an addictive illusion which will permeate your conscious over time.

The reason you hate failure so much and the reason I hate failure so much is because it’s a reminder you’re not really in control of your life. Some of us despise the idea of failure so much we’ll not allow ourselves to take risks or make decisions where there is even the possibility of failure.

How about you? Why do you think so many of us struggle with the fear of failure?