One of the most important things to understand about overcoming the fear of failure is that failure itself does not mean that you are a failure. People fail at moments in time, but that does not define you as a person from that point forward. Some of the most successful people in the world in business, athletics, or other professions fail.  For these people, failure can teach, motivate and sometimes inspire.  It does not become who they are, but rather it is just something that happened in their success process. They view failure as a setback, but not something that defines their next opportunity to be successful.

For less successful people, failure can begin to impact self-esteem and how a person thinks about their own worth.  If you believe that you are a failure, versus the idea that you experienced a failure in the process of success, you will have allowed fear to take over and you likely will experience more failure.  If you believe you are a loser, there is a good chance your actions and reactions to individual losses will lead you to continued losing.  Therefore, it is critical to separate what you believe you are from what you experience along the path to success. Failure is a moment in time, but success is determined over a lifetime.