Below are some prompts and exercises to help you build courage when you're afraid of potential failure.
Review
What does failure mean to you? What would actually have to happen for you to consider something a failure?
What are you most afraid would happen if you failed? Is it the practical consequences, how you'd feel, what you'd have to do next, or something else?
How have you normally coped with failure in the past? This can be any type of failure - a mistake, a failed relationship, a project gone wrong. How do you process loss? And how do you think this might look in relation to your current project?
What have you already gained in your current project? Have you already learned something new? What would you get to take with you today, even if the project ultimately failed?
What's a previous failure you're now grateful happened? What did it change, teach, or make possible that wouldn't have happened otherwise?
Practice
Hall of Failure: make a list of your top three greatest failures, mistakes, rejections, and things that didn't work out.
Next to each one, write what you learned, gained, or eventually did differently because of it.
Intentional Suckage: choose one thing you’re really bad at and go do it as publicly as possible.
Take Inventory: make a list of everything you’re trying to accomplish and for each item on the list, write down the potential reasons it might fail.
For each of those reasons, write one thing it would teach you if it didn’t work out and one thing you can do to improve it now to make failure even less likely.