Fear of failure, and how to overcome it

Fear of failure does not usually stop people from working. It changes what they work on.

Conroy and the motivation researcher Andrew Elliot wanted to know which comes first, the fear or the way people aim their effort. They asked 356 college students in physical activity classes about both, 4 times over 3 weeks (Conroy and Elliot, 2004). Fear of failure predicted a rise in avoidance goals: aiming not to do badly, rather than aiming to do well. The goals did not predict a rise in the fear.

Aiming not to do badly is aiming for safety, and safety has a look in a calendar. It is the hours around the thing: more research, another plan, a tidier folder, one more pass over what is already done. Each feels like progress, and none of them can fail. The rest of this page calls these the hours around it, and calls the work that could actually fail, such as the practice test or the sent email, the hours on it.

Students show it plainly. The psychologist John Dunlosky and colleagues reviewed the evidence on 10 common study techniques, and noted that rereading and highlighting are what most students report doing (Dunlosky and colleagues, 2013). The review rated both low in usefulness, and rated practice testing high. Rereading never tells you what you don’t know. A practice test does, which is why it is the hour people put off.

There is also a reason the around-hours win in the moment. The psychologist Dianne Tice and colleagues ran 3 experiments in which people were first put in a bad mood. Upset people reached for what would make them feel better right away: fattening snacks, a quick reward and, in the third experiment, pleasant things instead of work (Tice and colleagues, 2001). They stopped once they believed their mood could not be changed. Putting it off is short-term mood repair, and the feared hour waits.

A sharper version has a name: self-handicapping. It means setting up an excuse before the test, so a failure can be blamed on that instead of on you. In a classic experiment by Steven Berglas and Edward Jones, students were told they had done well on problems that could not really be solved, so the success seemed like luck. Before a retest, the male students chose a drug they were told would hurt their performance, which handed them an excuse in advance (Berglas and Jones, 1978). The women did not.

Staying up too late before the interview, or starting the essay the night before, is the same move in hours.

Many pages say procrastination is fear of failure in disguise. The research is more mixed than that.

A broad look at the question comes from Piers Steel, a researcher who studies procrastination. He gathered the results of many earlier studies into one meta-analysis, a study of studies, covering 691 measured links between procrastination and other traits or situations (Steel, 2007). The strong and consistent predictors of procrastination were how unpleasant the task is and how far away the reward is. Low confidence that you can do it, and impulsiveness, mattered too.

Studies that measure fear of failure with Conroy’s questionnaire do find a link, and it depends on the person. In one study of 300 university students, fear of failure went with more procrastination for those who rated their own competence low (Haghbin and colleagues, 2012). For those who rated it high, it went with less.

Another study asked 197 adults aged 18 to 90 about both, and also gave them five everyday plans to carry out over three days. More fear of failure went with more procrastination on the questionnaire (Danne and colleagues, 2023). Yet it was not linked to whether people actually carried out those plans.

So fear of failure is one reason some people put things off, not the reason everyone does. That changes the fix. If the task is dull, make it smaller or nearer. If it is fear, spend a little time on the feared part on purpose, and count it.

Name the fear. Pick which of the five it is. “I’ll be embarrassed in front of the team” suggests showing a draft to one person first. “It will prove I’m not good enough” suggests a practice round where the score does not count.

Find the smallest on-it hour. The on-it part is whatever could actually fail: sending the email, a test without notes, playing the song for someone, submitting the application. Make the first one small enough for this week: one question, one page, one call.

Put it first. Around-hours expand to fill the time before the feared one. Do the on-it hour before the research, not after.

Count both kinds. Write down what you did each day and for how long. At the end of the week, sort the hours into on it and around it. The split matters more than the total.

Expect a feeling, not a verdict. The fear does not have to go before you start. In the worked example, week two still had the fear in it. It also had hours of work that could show mistakes.

A good way to run this test counts the hours from what you already write or say about your day, so both kinds are on the record without a timer. Most journaling apps keep how afraid you felt. They do not show how the week split between the thing and everything around it.

One app built for this is Think in Numbers, a smart journaling app with time tracking built in.

You write or say your day in your own words, as it happens or all at once. The app reads what you wrote and counts the hours that went to each part of it: the hours on the thing you fear, the hours around it, your phone, and the time you never mentioned (shown as unaccounted). Then it shows those hours over days and weeks. You can add a note to any block, such as on it or around it, and a to-do can hold the first on-it hour with a reminder.

Write my first day

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Run it for three weeks. Each day, write down what you did on the project and for how long. Each Sunday, split the week into on it and around it. By the end of week three, you should have sent it, submitted it, played it or asked.

No research sets a cut-off for the split. Pick a share you believe, such as half, and hold yourself to it.

Here are the example student’s four weeks.

Fear of failure is normal, and research measures it as a trait people have in different amounts, not as a condition. Some health sites use the name atychiphobia for an intense form.

Cleveland Clinic says to contact a healthcare provider if fear of failure makes daily life hard to manage (Cleveland Clinic). The same goes for symptoms of a panic attack. In the US, if you are in emotional distress, call or text 988, or chat online at 988lifeline.org. It is free, confidential and open all day, every day (the 988 Lifeline). This page reports what research found. It is not medical advice.

Every figure on this page links to one of these. More on study hours that test you in How to study effectively.

1. Conroy, D. E., Willow, J. P. and Metzler, J. N. (2002). Multidimensional fear of failure measurement: the Performance Failure Appraisal Inventory. Journal of Applied Sport Psychology, 14(2), 76 to 90.
2. Conroy, D. E. and Elliot, A. J. (2004). Fear of failure and achievement goals in sport: addressing the issue of the chicken and the egg. Anxiety, Stress and Coping, 17(3), 271 to 285.
3. Dunlosky, J., Rawson, K. A., Marsh, E. J., Nathan, M. J. and Willingham, D. T. (2013). Improving Students' Learning With Effective Learning Techniques: Promising Directions From Cognitive and Educational Psychology. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 14(1), 4 to 58.
4. Tice, D. M., Bratslavsky, E. and Baumeister, R. F. (2001). Emotional distress regulation takes precedence over impulse control: if you feel bad, do it! Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 80(1), 53 to 67.
5. Berglas, S. and Jones, E. E. (1978). Drug choice as a self-handicapping strategy in response to noncontingent success. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 36(4), 405 to 417.
6. Steel, P. (2007). The nature of procrastination: a meta-analytic and theoretical review of quintessential self-regulatory failure. Psychological Bulletin, 133(1), 65 to 94.
7. Haghbin, M., McCaffrey, A. and Pychyl, T. A. (2012). The complexity of the relation between fear of failure and procrastination. Journal of Rational-Emotive and Cognitive-Behavior Therapy, 30, 249 to 263.
8. Danne, V., Gers, B. and Altgassen, M. (2023). Is the association of procrastination and age mediated by fear of failure? Journal of Rational-Emotive and Cognitive-Behavior Therapy, 42, 433 to 446.
9. Conroy, D. E. (2003). Representational models associated with fear of failure in adolescents and young adults. Journal of Personality, 71(5), 757 to 784.
10. Cleveland Clinic (read October 1, 2026). Fear of Failure (Atychiphobia): Causes and Treatment.
11. 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline (read October 1, 2026). 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline.