“I’m afraid of failing,” She said quietly her eyes were down and her shoulders drawn in.

I’d asked her why she had not done her homework for coaching. Homework is important, it helps to move you forward, strengthen your commitment, and sometimes it brings forth exactly what needs to be revealed.

Fear of failure is not uncommon. Being afraid of making the wrong choice, or taking the wrong actions, or missing out because your timing wasn’t right. It shows up in many ways and I bet there isn’t anyone who hasn’t hesitated to do something at some point in their lives because they feared it now working out.

Risking, no matter what it is, can be hard.

I smiled back, “Perfect. This is perfect. You are exactly where you need to be.”

It was true.

“Do you think you failed when you did not do your homework?”

“Yes. I thought I could avoid today.”

One of my agreements with coaching clients is that they do their homework and if not, the appointment will be cancelled.

“You thought you could get off the hook?” She shook her head yes. “So, did it work?”

She laughed, “No.”

“I guess you failed. Good work on confronting that fear.” She laughed.

When something doesn’t work, we often label it as a failure and then we internalize that message and it becomes; I failed.

But here’s the thing, what my client learned that day was not that she failed. She learned that her action did not bring about the result she was seeking.

She wanted to avoid the discomfort that was coming up for her in coaching sessions, so she took the action of not doing her homework intending that the consequence would be that her session would be cancelled, and she wouldn’t have to face the things she wanted to avoid.

Consider this mindset shift: There are no failures, only feedback.

When something doesn’t work it does not mean you are a failure. It means that what you tried did not get you the result you want. A different response when something doesn’t work is to get creative. Get curious. Get involved in finding the pathway that will work.