Doubt Kills More Dreams Than Failure Ever Will

Are you afraid of failure? What, exactly, are you afraid of?

Sure, if you’re afraid that the parachute won’t open when you jump out of the airplane, that’s a valid fear. But let’s tone it down a notch. What about the things you’d like to do? The dreams you haven’t attempted? The projects you haven’t started?

Who puts up these words? I’m going to doubt that there’s a board of directors who has to approve all messages, but who gets to choose? Maybe it’s just the owner of the restaurant. Hmm, but there are several here. Ah, I happen to know that these four restaurants (see image in this post) are owned by the same people. So maybe that’s it, they can do whatever they want.

But still, they could have written, “Free parking on Tuesdays!” But they chose to make a statement. Maybe they have dreams that were killed by doubt. They have four (very) successful restaurants, who knows their story. Maybe there were others that didn’t make it. Maybe they actually wanted to be professional badminton players, but their doubt got in the way.

There are all kinds of quotes about fear, doubt, success, failure. But you do hear quite a bit that failure is the best teacher. Doubt isn’t a teacher. Doubt is more like a ball and chain: holding you back, slowing you down, scarring your ankle.

We were at a lake in the summer and went up on rocks where people were jumping off. From the water, it didn’t look so hight, but when you got up there and looked down, it might as well have been cliff diving from Acapulco. If you looked down, if you debated, if you started calculating, you weren’t going to do it–or at least you were going to agonize for quite some time.

Put the doubt aside, but not reason. If no one has ever jumped from those cliffs, there might be a reason. But if others did it, why can’t you? Just jump. Don’t count, don’t hesitate, don’t think about it. Just go. What’s the worst that could happen? It’s not that high, it’s only going to hurt. Watch the others. They put their arms at their sides. Point your toes. Plug your nose or at least blow out when you hit. But you have to go. Now that you’re up there, you have to get down anyway. You’re already up there, that’s halfway. That’s more than halfway. If you truly doubted, you probably wouldn’t have even gone up the rocks. You’re there. Just jump. Don’t doubt, do.

I have a small addiction to taking photos of signs. I’m not going to get help.

Getting ice cream in central Phoenix, Arizona.