Fear of failure is like an innate human emotion that we harbor right from when we understand the definition of failure. It starts with fear of failure in school exams and once that’s over, the fear of failure in our careers kicks in. With the pandemic shoving major changes down so many people’s throats (pun unintended), this fear has only grown bigger.
According to Psychology Today, Humans don’t like change. It scares them because it isn’t something their mind is habitual to. The irony is that this change that’s all about the new way of working is quite beneficial for most of us. Having said that, it is important to note that the fear of failure during virtual interviews and while working at remote jobs can be overwhelming but is normal. This is especially true, if you’ve not worked in a remote environment before.
But worry not, we’re here to help you with some effective strategies that you can use to conquer these fears and thrive in a remote work environment.
How to Overcome Your Fear of Failure: 3 Strategies for Remote Interviews
Some failures can turn out to be big learning opportunities and looking at everything through that lens only helps broaden your vision. Let’s find out what are the methods that can help you overcome your fear of failure in remote interviews.
1. Constructive Criticism Can Aid Your Growth
Hearing a negative statement might lead to low self-esteem, but if you adjust your perspective and treat it as feedback, you’ll be more prepared for the next remote job interview. Consider the remarks carefully to determine whether they are true, and then devise a strategy to turn your weakness into a strength. It’s always a good idea not to take negative feedback personally and instead attempt to utilise it to improve yourself.
If you failed your remote interview and the interviewer was kind enough to give you detailed feedback, you’ll get lots of cues to how remote interviews work and where you went wrong. Was it a weak WiFi connection? Background noise? Selling yourself inappropriately? The small details can make a huge difference. Whether or not the interviewer gives you feedback, you must request one to learn from. Understand all your previous feedback from your workplace or previous interviews so that you’re better prepared to deal with your next set of interviews without any fears.
2. Thinking Positively Can Change Your Next Interview Results
Aiming for positivity might help you gain confidence and alleviate some of the worry that comes with failing. Take time to reframe negative encounters in your thoughts as learning opportunities rather than concentrating on flaws or bad results. You obtain significant insight into how you are growing by focusing on successes.
After every failed interview or failed career attempts, make sure you don’t just dwell into everything that went wrong. It’s best to balance your learning from your mistakes and your persistence and confidence to go on despite the failures.
After you’ve learned something from the experience, move ahead with even more confidence because now you’re even better equipped than before. Highlight all your strengths and skills in your mind before you sit for the next interview.
3. Reduce the effects of stressors
Certain circumstances can cause anxiety and stress before an interview, despite your rigorous preparation and positive attitude. These issues could include: wearing uncomfortable clothing, getting nervous about the background, noises from pets and family and so on.
Choose a comfortable and professional outfit for your remote interview. Make sure you’re prepared for the interview. You might also want to practice several ways of presenting yourself as part of your preparation.
Also, inform your friends and family about the interview so that they can keep all kinds of noise low. For your pets, indulge them in some activity that keeps them busy so that they don’t look for you during your interview. Check the sound and video and your Internet connection too. Do a routine check to steer clear of any fears right before the interview.
How to Deal With Fear Of Failing At A New Job?
Understand Your Fear
We fear failure because of how it makes us feel: disappointed, embarrassed, and worthless, to mention a few. Failure is frequently associated with the worst-possible outcome we envision manifesting as a result of our activities.
If you are offered a large promotion but are unsure that your abilities and knowledge will ensure your success, you may believe that failure is unavoidable as a result of which you will lose your job. Just this fear and assumption could lead to you declining the position, even if it was your ideal job.
This scenario is not uncommon: people often turn down opportunities because they are afraid of failing. So the first step is to understand what are you afraid of? Once you know what’s stopping you from taking on responsibilities or a better position, you’ll be able to get past this challenge.
Face Your Fear
We are accustomed to speaking badly about failure in regular conversation especially when it’s related to our career or our profession, but we can always choose to look at everything differently. It is beneficial to view failures at a new job as lessons rather than as a path to unwelcome consequences and misery. This may appear cliched, but it is extremely useful.
Failure becomes less uncertain and frightening the more you perceive it as something that’s necessary for your growth. Failures can teach you valuable life lessons that aren’t just about your career. The idea is to not take them to heart but to extract the right things from the experience and move on.
Conquer Your Fear With Reasoning
Here’s what you can do when you sense anxiety creep up on you:
- Take a step back and ask yourself what you’re afraid of before making any judgments. What’s the worst-case scenario you’re always thinking about? You’ll commit a blunder and will get fired at your new job? You’ll ask for a leave and get fired? What’s that one fear that’s holding you back?
- Once you know what’s bothering you, it’s time to shift your perspective and concentrate on the facts you already know like leave policies, write up policies and terms of termination, etc. So, now you have the feelings and the facts right in front of you.
- Compare your feelings against the facts and figure out if your feelings really make sense. You’ll easily figure out that most of it is irrational fear that can easily be dismissed with the help of these facts.
3 Steps To Get Past The Fear of Failure At Your New Remote Job
1. Set Goals
While this is what you normally do in any job setting or if you’re setting up a personal goal for the future, it’s still helpful to remember that setting goals can squeeze many fears out of you. How?
- Setting goals gives structure to the work you’re going to do. You know what you’re doing and why you’re doing it which keeps you motivated and going.
- Setting goals will also mean setting up a schedule. This helps you organize your work better which subsequently leads to fewer missed deadlines at work. So that one fear of not delivering work on time is straight out of that window.
- One way to give a timeline to your success is to go for goal-setting. When you set goals, you literally define the timeframe for achieving “success”. This activity trains your mind to think that you’re on your path to success because that’s the final destination. Where’s the failure? Doesn’t exist.
2. Self-evaluate From Time-To-Time
Self-evaluation is a vital aspect of self-improvement, but it’s also essential for overcoming failure-related fears. If you’re at your new job, upgrade your skills from time to time and make learning new industry-related information a habit. When you keep yourself up-to-date with everything that’s going on in your profession, you’ll feel more confident of taking on new roles, promotions and projects.
When you stack up on experience and knowledge, you’re more eager to win and succeed rather than fearing failure when presented with new opportunities.
Another crucial aspect of self-evaluation is to consider your previous struggles in order to see where you have room for improvement. Finding out where you failed in your previous jobs and taking proactive actions to remedy those errors might make you feel more confident in your abilities.
3. Seek Professional Help
If you’re still worried about failure, consulting an expert like a Career counselling, advisor, or coach may be beneficial. These professionals can help you grow by teaching you anxiety and stress control strategies.
You can even speak to counsellors or advisors on reputed remote job portals who can always help you with guides and other preparations before/during your remote job journey. Some even provide services like revamping your resume, helping you hone your skills or helping you prepare for remote interview questions, etc.
There should be no shame in seeking outside help because if nothing works for you, reaching out to experts surely can help alleviate a lot of the fear and stress on your mind regarding your new remote job.
Don’t Let Fear of Failure Cripple Your Chances At Success
While it’s natural to have some degree of fear of failing at remote interviews or a new job, it’s not okay to let It overwhelm you and take over your existence. This is why, it’s best to adopt some or all of the strategies mentioned above to minimize your fears and maximize your output.
Learn, unlearn, succeed, repeat.
