Overcoming the Fear of Failure

All through growing up, I was terrified of the “F” word – FAILURE. To me, any little failure I had meant that I was a failure. It wasn’t until the summer of 2006 when God started the process of showing me that failure was an event, never a person.

At the core of the fear of failure was an assumption that perfection was the means that I would find my value as a person. Perfection was the ultimate goal and purpose of life. I used to be fearful of failure. Perfection is one of the most popular and poisonous lies that Satan has taught the world today.

The passionate pursuit of perfection was the means I used to try obtain and maintain the elusive love and approval of my Heavenly Father. This is one of the most damaging counterfeit purposes that Satan has ever promoted, especially within the church.

When I changed my purpose, I completely changed the pair of glasses in which I always saw failure through. Self-condemnation, beating myself up, and being hard on myself was no longer my shadow. Eventually the fear of failure faded away. As a result, the constant feeling of, “Never good enough,” also finally fade away.

My true purpose is to develop loving relationships with God and others (Mt. 22:35-40), not perfection.

When I choose to receive, experience, and live in the Father’s love, all day, every day, the fear of failure is replaced with the pursuit of excellence, because HE first loved me (1 John 4:19). I’m no longer driven by fear, but by the power of reciprocal love.

About Michael Trillo:

Michael spent the first eleven years of his life in the Philippines, before he moved with his family to Los Angeles. He graduated from Columbia International University. He was involved in youth ministry for many years before he was sent by his heavenly Father to the marketplace mission field.

Michael currently resides with his wife and children in the beautiful Northwest. He is an avid sports fan, with a special interest in basketball and Jiu Jitsu. He has also competed in the sport of arm wrestling since 1996.

Michael believes that knowledge is a means to an end. The end purpose of life is developing a loving relationship with God and others (Matthew 22:35-40). The result of that end is producing fruit, doing good works, and changing the world. It is an enslaving purpose to pursue knowledge and fruit producing as an end in itself.

His Favorite Verse

“I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge–that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.” Ephesians 3:17-19

His Passion

• To intimately know his heavenly Dad—deeper, wider, and more intimately today than he did yesterday (Philippians 3:7-8)
• To know, love, and enjoy his family
• To share the Great News of Jesus Christ with the world (Mark 16:15)
• To expose counterfeit life purposes that unknowingly enslave Christians to a life of stress (Ephesians 5:12), preventing them from truly knowing their God intimately
• To teach the indisputable connection between counterfeit life purposes and stress
• To teach and inspire Christians on how to overcome stress, using sound biblical principles (Romans 12:2) and to guide them to live their true purpose, based on what the Bible teaches (Matthew 22:35-39, 1 John 4:19), which results in the abundant life Jesus promised (John 10:10, 15:5)
• To teach and inspire others to truly receive and believe the heavenly Father’s love (1 John 3:1) and watch them radically be changed . . . permanently (John 15:5)

For more from Michael, visit www.MichaelTrillo.com