Fear of Failure

“What would you attempt to do

if you knew you could not fail?”

-   Robert H. Schuller

No, I am not a follower of the Reverend Schuller, and let me just say, this post is not about him or his beliefs!  That said, I did like this quote!

Sitting in on the Gold Award Trainings, and interviewing the girls in the approval process has sometimes made me wonder:  why are so many going for an easy way out?  The leaders want to know how soon the girls can start counting their hours, and there’s a fear that the project won’t have enough hours of work.  And on the girl part, we see on their paperwork that they have inflated how long tasks might take, just to “make the hours” and make the project seem more worthy.

Is it the fear of failure?  The fear of reaching too high and risking not achieving the goal? Is this why we see so many milquetoast proposals that are, well, barely good enough?

Indeed, this speaks to what Karin and Lesley emphasize in the training, that the new Gold Award is RAISING THE BAR!  We want the advisors to encourage the girls to reach high. And we want the girls to stretch and reach for a goal that is difficult, yet achievable..  The Gold Award should be the toughest project she’s ever taken on for Girl Scouts!  It should take time and effort

What would the girl do if she knew she could not fail?  How would she proceed differently?  Would she think bigger?  Would she do more investigation?  Would she look further outside her comfort zone for a project?  And would she leave the comfort of her troop/leader/advisor and reach out to a different source to help her achieve her goals?

Perhaps the challenge to us, the advisors/parents/support team, is to encourage the girl to reach high!  We offer support in talking about how to make the project bigger and better while still having it be girl led, include cooperative learning and have the girl learn by doing!  Don’t accept “good enough!”  Encourage the girl to go for GREAT!