How Afraid of Failing Are You?
What exactly you are afraid will happen if it goes wrong
Nobody is afraid of failure in the abstract. People are afraid of what failure would bring: the embarrassment, the doubt about their own ability, the closed doors, the people who might lose interest or be let down. Research on athletes and students found five separate fears hiding under the one label, and two people with the same overall score can be afraid of completely different things. Knowing which one is yours makes it far easier to work with.
Before you start There are no right answers. Pick what is usually true for you, not what sounds best.
Think of situations where you could succeed or fail - exams, work, sport, anything you are judged on - and answer about how you usually react.
What it measures
The five fears described by the Performance Failure Appraisal Inventory: shame and embarrassment, doubting your own ability, an uncertain future, people losing interest in you, and upsetting people who matter. Unlike our perfectionism and impostor tests, it looks at what you expect failure to cost you, not at your standards or at doubts about deserving success.
Based on: Performance Failure Appraisal Inventory (Conroy, 2001; Conroy, Willow & Metzler, 2002)
Possible results
Shame and embarrassment
Fear of being seen to fail and of what others will think.
Doubting your ability
Fear that a failure would prove you are less capable than you hoped.
Uncertain future
Fear that a failure would upset your plans and close doors.
Losing others' interest
Fear that people would value you or listen to you less after a failure.
Letting others down
Fear of disappointing or upsetting the people whose opinion matters to you.
Common questions
Is fear of failure the same as perfectionism?
They often travel together but they are different. Perfectionism is about the standards you set and how harshly you judge falling short of them. Fear of failure is about what you expect to happen afterwards - shame, doubt, closed doors, disappointed people. You can have modest standards and still dread failing because of what others will think.
Can fear of failure be motivating?
In the short term, yes - it can make people prepare harder. The inventory this test is adapted from was designed partly around this question, and it correlates with how people frame their goals; the general pattern in motivation research is that goals framed around avoiding a bad outcome tend to hold up less well over time than goals framed around approaching something you want.
How do you get over a fear of failure?
Start with your highest bar, because each fear has a different answer. Shame eases when you fail on purpose in small, low-stakes ways and notice that people move on. Self-doubt eases when you judge attempts rather than yourself. Fears about the future and about other people shrink when you check them against what actually happened the last few times you fell short.
Sources
- Conroy, D. E. (2001). Progress in the development of a multidimensional measure of fear of failure: The Performance Failure Appraisal Inventory (PFAI). Anxiety, Stress & Coping. doi:10.1080/10615800108248365
- Conroy, D. E., Willow, J. P., & Metzler, J. N. (2002). Multidimensional fear of failure measurement: The Performance Failure Appraisal Inventory. Journal of Applied Sport Psychology. doi:10.1080/10413200252907752
An honest note The items are Quinthea's own wording, adapted from the Performance Failure Appraisal Inventory, so scores are not comparable to its published norms. The inventory was built largely with American students and athletes, and its five fears overlap strongly, so read the bars as a map rather than five independent facts. Fear of failing is common and not a diagnosis; if it is stopping you from doing things you want to do, a psychologist can help.
Try one of these next
How Often Do You Get Into Flow?
Losing track of time at work, over the washing-up and in your free hours
Do You Believe in Free Will?
Choice, causes, fate and pure chance - and how much of each you think runs a life
How Grateful Are You, Actually?
Noticing, feeling it, and saying so are three different things