What if you stepped into your fear of failure?
This week I’m talking about fear of failure, what its true source really is, and how you can battle it and get moving on your God-shaped dream.
IF YOU HAVE EVER WRESTLED WITH A FEAR OF FAILURE, THIS IS THE EPISODE FOR YOU.
If you’ve been avoiding your dream because you fear you might fail, if you’ve stopped taking steps forward because you feel like you are not enough, this is the episode for you. You can let go of all your striving when you remember that Jesus is enough and He promises to bring His work in you to completion.
In this episode you’ll learn:
Why fear of failure feels so personal and how it tries to define your worth
The sneaky spiritual lie fear keeps telling us about our identity in Christ
A practical step to shift from fearing failure to resting in God’s unshakeable love
MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:
Get on the waitlist for Dreamers Unleashed and join us this summer for freedom from the fear, imposter syndrome and comparison that’s currently standing in the way of your God-shaped dream.
Cari Jenkins, episode 51, How to Trust God When Dreams Disappoint
CONNECT WITH MERRITT:
Website || Facebook || Instagram || Book a Call
Scripture:
The Lord your God is with you,
the Mighty Warrior who saves.
He will take great delight in you;
in his love he will no longer rebuke you,
but will rejoice over you with singing.
~ Zephaniah 3:17 (NIV)
…and behold, a voice from heaven said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.”
~ Matthew 3:17 (ESV)
Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. 4 For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love 5 he predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will— 6 to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves. 7 In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace 8 that he lavished on us. With all wisdom and understanding, 9 he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ,10 to be put into effect when the times reach their fulfillment—to bring unity to all things in heaven and on earth under Christ.
11 In him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will, 12 in order that we, who were the first to put our hope in Christ, might be for the praise of his glory. 13 And you also were included in Christ when you heard the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation. When you believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, 14 who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession—to the praise of his glory.
~ Ephesians 1:3-14 (NIV)
Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name,
he gave the right to become children of God.
~ John 1:12 (NIV)
PIN IT FOR LATER:
The unedited transcript for this episode of The Devoted Dreamers Podcast follows:
Hey Dreamer — before we jump in, this is a special replay from the Devoted Dreamers archives. This summer I’m kicking off the next cohort of Dreamers Unleashed – my course on Exchanging Imposter Syndrome for God's Promises – so I’m bringing back some of my most relevant episodes about overcoming fear and imposter syndrome because naming these challenges is the first step toward walking in freedom with a God-shaped dream.
If you’re feeling stuck, doubting your abilities, wondering if you’re really cut out for this dream God has given you... these episodes are for you!
And if you want to go deeper, Dreamers Unleashed is opening soon — keep listening all the way through to the end for more details about how you can join us this summer to start experiencing the freedom for which Christ has set you free.
And now, here’s today's episode!
Welcome, Dreamer. I'm so glad you're here. I'm your host, Merritt Onsa, and this is the podcast where we talk about our God-shaped dreams, the ones we're pursuing, hoping to pursue, or waiting on God to reveal.
I don't know you yet, but I hope to. And my hope with this podcast is to help you move from uncertainty to action so that your life might sing, that it might sing praises to God for your good and his glory, because he made you for big things.
But the more I talk with women about their dreams, the more I understand there's a battle within. Is it okay to be ambitious, to dream, to do something with our skills, gifts, and experiences? If you're struggling with this, don't listen to me. Go read God's word, specifically Ephesians 1, and let the God of the universe remind you that you were chosen for a purpose in order that you might live for the praise of his glory.
Sure, you might feel some fear, anxiety, insecurity, walking forward in your dream, but don't let those things stop you. We all feel them to some extent. And you cannot let those feelings or the voices that tell you you have no business dreaming this dream, you cannot let them win because you are a daughter of the King.
And that's why we're having this conversation. I pray it's what you hear today in this episode. Thank you so much for joining in. As always, you'll find the Show Notes at merrittonsa.com/podcast, and please connect with me and the community of Devoted Dreamers in our Facebook group or over on Instagram @Merrittjo.
And now, here's today's episode:
Welcome to the Devoted Dreamers Podcast. Hi, it's Merritt here, and I am gonna do something a little bit different this week. I'll talk about why in a second, but this is episode 96, and I'm calling this a solo episode because, hey, it's just me over here. And there's two reasons that I've decided to do this. One is just out of practicality. There are not enough hours in the day with two kids, a husband, and everything else going on in life to really figure out how to schedule these interviews. So it's going to be just me today until I get some of those things smoothed out a little bit about how to plan ahead with somebody else on a call.
But number two, I've been challenged to do more solo episodes, and there is a topic that has come up that I think is super important to talk about. And so I thought I would spend this time today with you talking about fear of failure and how it keeps us from our God-shaped dreams, keeps us from pursuing our God-shaped dreams.
And I don't know if you follow me on Instagram, I'm over there @Merrittjo, that's two Rs, two T's-j-o. And last week I posted a couple of different posts on Instagram stories just asking people to respond to a poll regarding the things that keep them from their God-shaped dreams.
And early in the day, you know, 24 hours is how long those stories stay live. And early in the day there were two that kind of had 100% agreement with everyone who was participating. And by the end of the day, that 24 hours, there was just one left that 100% of the people said was something keeping them from their God shaped dream. And that was fear of failure.
And I won't say that I was alarmed that that was something people were afraid of. I certainly relate to that feeling. But it was kind of profound to me that 100% of you agree that fear of failure is something that might be keeping you from your God-shaped dream. And so I wanted to explore that and share a little bit more on this topic and just be in this with you so that we could discover how to address it as we pursue our God-shaped dreams.
It's not surprising that anyone might say, oh, I fear failure. I fear screwing this up or doing it wrong or not doing it the way that God has called me to do.
We've probably all heard the statistic or the quote that Thomas Edison tried 1,000 times and failed to create a working light bulb. There's even kind of his response to that, that it wasn't that he failed a thousand times, but that he invented something with a thousand steps along the way.
And so, right, we can all look at that and be like, sure, creating new technology like a light bulb, like electrical light that comes on when you flip a switch in a room that might take more than one or two tries.
It might be hard to connect with that being similar to us pursuing a dream that we feel like God's put on our heart. This technology was his specialty or this was the area… I really have no clue about Thomas Edison, but all I'm trying to say is we might look at that and be like, yeah, of course, 1,000 tries. Why wasn't it 2,000? And not be able to connect emotionally with what's going on when we say, I fear getting this wrong and therefore I'm unable to step forward.
I hear guests say things like my feet are stuck in the mud or feels like my feet are in cement, like I cannot move forward. And so I feel like that's something spiritual and emotional within us that we've got to process through and figure out how to get around or over or through or past so that we can begin to pursue our God-shaped dreams.
And you might even be comfortable with or acknowledge along with me that it could take several tries to do something new that you've never done before. For example, this podcast. Like, I didn't know when I started this podcast what it was going to look like, what even failure would look like. If I think about it now, failure might be no one listened, or I sounded horrible on a recording, or I just really couldn't figure out the technology. And all of those things could be called, “failure” for starting a podcast. And I think it's kind of natural to be like, oh, something technical like that, the more you do it, the better you get at it. Or, you know, that we learn from our mistakes or our failures.
Like, I think we can logically connect with that truth that in order to get to the end result we seek, which may or may not be perfection. I don't know if you're perfectionist. I tend to be, but I'm loosening up on that these days. But it's not even that we balk against that, that it might take us several tries to get something right. There's something in us that not necessarily is resistant to trying, but it's resistant to what happens when we try and it doesn't go well.
And I want to mention – this has come up on the podcast before as well – the 10,000 hours rule that it takes you 10,000 hours of practicing something again and again and again in order to actually kind of earn your expert license. That's kind of in quotes. But if I think about it, working on this podcast, if I've done 95 interviews, each interview probably takes an hour and a half times 95, that's somewhere in the 200 hours range. So I've got a ways to go. I’m no Barbara Walters over here, but yeah, 10,000 hours seems like a really high goal to reach before we actually could be 100% or at least consistently successful at something.
So that may be a barrier that some people are feeling as well. Like, gosh, if it's going to be 10,000 hours before I'm actually good at this, why would I even try?
So I reached out to about a dozen women who responded to that Instagram post. Thank you, Instagram, for making it possible to see who said yes to that poll.
And so there were about a dozen ladies that I either know personally or just know via social media or online, and I asked if they would respond to a follow-up question about what their fear of failure is all about.
And the question that I asked, not even a question, it's a statement, asked them to fill in the blank. “I fear failure because it would mean that I am….”
So I'm going to step off for a second here, and I'm going to let you listen to their thoughts.
Now, I feel like my fear of failure is more like I feel secure in the things I'm doing and the place where I'm at. But am I doing those things well? Am I stewarding the things that God has asked me to do, the opportunities that he's given me, the doors that he's opened? Am I failing to do those well? And I think that rests so much on my own abilities. And so I think that's my biggest fear of failure in this current season is just failing to do the things that God has asked me to do well.
I figured out that I fear failure because it confirms that deepest dread in my heart that says that I am not enough as I am.
I feel failure because it indicates that I am not good enough, that I, am defined by that lack of being able to accomplish whatever that thing was.
I fear failure because it would indicate that I am not quite good enough.
Here's one more from a friend who wrote out her answer. She said, “If I fail, it would indicate that I'm not in control and that terrifies me. I'm hesitant and hide from opportunity because I know that I might work as hard as I can and it still might not be enough.”
Did you hear it? Did you hear what I heard? They all said the same thing.
It might have sounded a little differently in the words that they chose, but every one of them is speaking to this feeling of not being good enough, not feeling good enough, not performing well enough to be approved of.
And let me assure you, these people did not speak to each other. They didn't get together and say, well, what are you going to say? I don't think any of them even knew the others were going to be responding to this. This was seriously random. Pretty much everybody who said yes had a chance to respond. And I think there were five of them. They all spoke to the same feeling of not being enough.
And I'm not sure I expected that. I don't know what I expected. But I think the question from here has to be, where does that come from? How are so many women struggling with this fear of failure in the same way of not feeling good enough, that that's what failure might say about them?
And I think there's two things. I think it goes back to what we believe about God and what we believe about ourselves. And on the what we believe about God side, you know, this really strikes me, and I totally relate because I am a performer. I want to do the right thing. I never want to mess up. There's this belief that we have to measure up.
And the reality is that God never says that. In fact, he says the opposite. I'm sitting over here believing I have to earn my value from God. But that's not the story he wrote. That's not the story of Christ. The man who is God, was God, came to earth to live as a man and lived that perfect life and died on the cross through extreme suffering so that we would not have to earn, not possible, but so that we would not have to earn our salvation.
And I'm going to talk about ourselves in a minute, what we believe about ourselves, but let me talk about this, what we believe about God for a second. One, we're not really believing the story.
When we fall into fear of failure, we're not believing in the resurrection of Jesus Christ, that that payment was made for us. And let me remind you, this is the God who, in Zephaniah 3:17, rejoices over you with loud singing. Like he came because he loves you so deeply, more than you could ever imagine. And he saw you for who you are, the sinner, the imperfect, the totally, completely flawed. You could never save yourself. You could never even pay for your own sin. He saw you and he loved you anyway. He gave Himself up for you, allowed Himself to be horribly beaten and killed for you in order that you might live free, in order that you might live in the freedom from the bondage to that sin, from the eternal consequence of sin, that you might live free and let your life sing for Him.
*~*~*
Is there an unkind and accusing voice that keeps you from taking action? If so, imposter syndrome might be killing your dream.
But more important than that, it’s blocking the hope promised in Christ and covering it up with half-truths and blatant lies that sabotage your confidence and keep your gifts handcuffed and hidden from view.
I want to teach you how you can step forward in the face of these threats. And, once you do, you’ll start to realize the power they’ve had over you will diminish in no time!
That’s what we do inside Dreamers Unleashed and this June is your chance to join us!
Get your name on the waitlist today at www.merrittonsa.com/devo, and I’ll send you the 7 Truths to Silence the Voice of Self-Doubt ~ a 7-day devotional that will get you started and remind you and reinforce for you the truth about who you are, about who God is, and how we fight the battle for our mind, our heart, and our dreams!
*~*~*
And I think I said in the first episode of this season that if you're struggling to understand who you are in Christ and that he has given you good gifts and chosen you for a purpose, to go back and read Ephesians 1. Paul talks about that you were chosen by God. Do you believe you were chosen, that he chose you not just for something that you might do for Him, but he chose you to be his and that your life might be for the praise of his glory, to bring Him fame and notice in the world. And the other verb that is used in Ephesians 1 a little bit later on is that you're included in Christ and that when God sees Jesus, he sees you, that you're included in Him, that you are a part of Him, that he envelops you.
And the story of Jesus' baptism, where the Spirit comes upon Him and says, this is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased, because you are included in Christ, that is about you too. This is my beloved Son, this is my beloved daughter, with whom I am well pleased before you've done anything. He is well pleased with you.
You are a daughter of the King. He calls you his beloved. And that's today. Not after you get it right, not after you do all the things or do all the things perfectly, not even after you pursue your dream or the thing that you think He's made you to do. His love does not come after that. It comes now. He is pleased now with you.
Okay, now I want to talk about this, what we believe about ourselves, and let's just put it out there. If fear of failure is what drives us or keeps us from living as a chosen, beloved daughter of the King, versus living as someone who did all the right things not well, right?
Our performance defines us, if we're living out of that fear of failure. This goes back to our identity.
And it just so happens that this past weekend, I heard Cari Jenkins, she was a guest on the podcast back in episode 51. Actually, go back and listen to that if you have a chance. It's excellent. She's a gifted teacher and really understands this identity piece and is able to clarify it really, really well. So I got to hear her speak on Saturday, and a lot of what I'm going to share here is based on some of what she spoke about this last Saturday.
So this identity piece, what I believe about myself, if I pour my heart and soul into something and fail, therefore I am deeply flawed, right? That's what I'm believing if I'm having this fear of failure and it reaches into the core of myself. So I've pursued this thing that's so deeply connected to me and my desires, and if I fail at it, then it means that there's something wrong with me.
But Cari says—and God's Word says—that where we find our identity matters. That absolutely matters. And I think we know this logically. Like, if you've been in church any amount of time, you've heard anybody talk about our identity in Christ, it's like, yes, of course our identity is Christ. We know that in our heads. But how do we get that truth into our heart so that when this fear of failure comes up, we can turn away from it and back to Him and say, no, no, my identity is not in how I perform. My identity is not in what I do right or what I do wrong and how you, God, or anybody else might see me as a result of that performance or of that behavior. No, my identity is in Christ.
And so when I'm in charge of everything that happens in my life and all the things that I do and all the repercussions of those things, this is me trying to earn my value, trying to do it all, trying to do it all perfectly. But alternatively, and so, so much better, when God is in charge, he does it all. He is already perfect. He gives me my value regardless of what I do. Doesn't matter what I do, how I perform, none of the things that I do earn his love, earn his approval, all of those things are human perceptions.
So if you've got daddy or mommy issues or if you've got the I have to perform to earn my love and acceptance, that is all human flawed perspective on relationship.
God's perspective on relationship is I loved you, I came for you. You could not earn my love. I came because I loved you and I wanted to free you from the bondage of you thinking you had to do anything to earn it.
So when I know who I am, a child of the King, and I've been given this right, God gave it to me in John 1:12 it says, yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God. So it was bestowed upon us. It was given to us. It was not earned. There was nothing we could do to receive that. He just gave it to us. God gave it to us. Then I can know that I am loved and accepted and it humbles me that I can look to Christ and say, Lord, I did nothing to deserve that love. I did nothing to earn that right to become your child. But you say it's true, and if I believe you that it's true, I've got to figure out how to work that into my heart.
This is a struggle. I'm going to admit to you that I really struggle with this. And when I hear people like Cari and pastors who really clearly and decisively preach on this topic, Tim Keller is one that helps me see this truth and get it into my heart, but I really struggle with this, somehow, I think I need to earn it. Like there's something in me that drives me to want to earn the acceptance and the love of God and it's just not his economy. It is just not the truth.
So if you're hearing in me a bit of a struggle around this topic, know that I am currently in this moment, even wrestling with believing it myself.
And so I'm not going to try to give you my own wisdom because I know that that in itself is already tainted with my own sin nature of wanting to earn God's love and affection and approval.
And instead, I will just share with you what Cari shared was her just kind of the way that she tackles this in her own life. So she talked about coming to speak to this group of women and how if she came with a perspective of how the women respond to my talk, then she's operating out of my identity being in someone else other than Christ or in something else other than Christ.
And so the opportunity there is to repent, which God calls us to, and to repent you know is to turn around, to turn back and away from. And so she used this example of speaking. So if she said, if I am afraid of another person's opinion of me, she said I stop and I pause and I ask what's going on? When fear pops up, I ask, what's going on? And so in this example, I'm afraid of somebody's opinion. I'm afraid that I might come and stand up and speak to a group of people and that the people might not like it, that they might not come up after and encourage me or say that it was a great talk.
Now, in the same vein that people might come up and encourage her and say it was a great talk. And it's the same in either one of those. She says she's finding her identity in that person or those people's opinion.
And so the alternative is to stop and pause and go, okay, I'm trying to find my value, worth and identity in somebody else's opinion or in how I perform. Lord Jesus, forgive me. I turn back from that and I turn to you and I ask you to remind me that you are what define and give me identity? That you give me value, that Your Word says I am valuable and chosen and that I have the right to be your child, and it's not by anything that I've done.
And so she basically said every day she has to repent of this, and this is somebody that speaks really from an educated perspective on this topic. When I hear her speak, I'm like, oh, my gosh. Cari Jenkins really gets it. But even Cari Jenkins is not perfect and has to repent of this fear that exists within her when she begins to place her identity in something other than Jesus.
But that's the response that when that fear of failure rises up in you, when you have an opportunity to do something and you are tempted to say, nah, I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to step out in faith, I'm not going to risk what might happen if I say yes to that. The answer is to repent and return to Jesus.
And so I think this might be a good time to wrap things up. But as I do that, it's reassuring to me, because when I started this podcast, my hope was not just to interview women who had done interesting things and share those interviews with you.
Since the beginning of this podcast, I have felt that being what I call a Devoted Dreamer is not really about hustle or working harder or even working smarter. Instead, being a Devoted Dreamer is about knowing where your value and worth lies, knowing that it is in Christ, and that everything else flows from that. Anything that we are capable of accomplishing on this earth flows out of that identity because it comes from Him. He does the work.
And so when we live in that freedom and out of the grace that he's given us, then and only then, can we really produce the fruit that he has planted within us to grow and make this beautiful garden among his followers. So just be encouraged. It's not the other way around, it's not work harder, and then God will bless you. It's that God has blessed you, allow Him to work in you, allow his grace and forgiveness to feed that which you are able to do in his power and with his identity.
If today’s episode stirred something in you — if you recognize yourself in the struggle against fear or imposter syndrome — you don’t have to stay silent, sidelined, or playing small.
Dreamers Unleashed will shift everything for you. It’s part live-teaching and part group coaching experience designed to help you silence the voice of self-doubt and imposter syndrome with powerful truth grounded in God’s Word, so you can start taking bold, faithful action on the whispers of the dream the Lord has given you.
Enrollment opens later this month and we start the live course together the first week of June.
Head on over to www.merrittonsa.com/devo —that’s d-e-v-o—to join the waitlist today. I would love to walk this journey with you.
Remember: Your dream matters. And you are already equipped for it because of the One who called you.
See you next week!
MORE ABOUT THE DEVOTED DREAMERS PODCAST:
Subscribe and leave a review on Apple Podcasts or Stitcher Radio.
Join the Devoted Dreamers Insiders Facebook Group
Follow Merritt on Instagram || Facebook || Pinterest
The Devoted Dreamers Podcast is produced by Jonathan R. Clauson.
Theme music by Reaktor Productions.
Ad music used under Creative Commons by Lee Rosevere.