Undoubtedly, the most common fear among students is the fear of failure —the fear of failing in exams, to be precise.

Nobody likes to fail in any task. Sometimes students might have prepared well for exams, but still it does not stop them from getting worried about the result. They become tensed and under-pressured because they fear that if their result is not good, they might face some kind of punishment at home and their friends will also make fun of them. This causes so much anxiety that they start doubting their own abilities. And that is not good for their mental health.

We have to understand that fearing something is not always bad. For instance, if we let our fear of failure drive us to do even better than before, that means we made this fear channel our energy in a positive direction, instead of letting it cripple us. So this fear can also give us motivation, if we let it. And for that we need to learn to control it.

First of all, we have to understand that fear is a completely normal feeling. What becomes a problem, or ‘abnormal’, is our reaction to the fear that we feel. Failure and success are both a part and parcel of life. A person who has not faced any failure in his life is not strong, because true strength comes when we face our failures and learn from it.

We need to learn to improve our self-confidence and we should believe in ourselves and our abilities. These can make us strong enough to not fall apart after facing failure of any kind.

Now let me tell you how I overcame my fear of failure at studies. After spending years with this fear, I finally decide that I had to tell somebody to help me as I could not spend the rest of my life like this.

So I shared my feelings with a friend and she told me that she also had a fear of swimming and then she had overcome it. She told me that I have to face it before I could control it. I had to be stronger and calmer.

Trying to follow her instructions, I started to avoid getting worked up by those strange voices or weird feelings that came over me whenever I doubted my abilities and thought about not doing well in studies. I tried to calm myself down whenever this happened.

In the beginning, it was difficult to avoid getting stressed whenever I would have exams. But slowly, I learned to face and then overcome it. I confess it was not easy. But with time, I learned how to keep negative thoughts away and become stronger.

So stop letting the fear of failure stop you from achieving your full potential. Control this fear before it controls you and your life.

Published in Dawn, Young World, June 29th, 2024