What if you did it? How do you think you would feel if you truly allowed yourself to make those dreams come true?
There comes a quiet moment, often left unspoken, when we stand at the edge of our own dreams, uncertain whether to leap. It is a moment of hesitation. We feel torn: our hearts yearning to reach for more, while fear of failure whispers that we should stay small, stay safe and avoid the risks worth taking.
The fear of dreaming itself can hold us back, convincing us that our hopes are too big, too impossible. However, what if we dared to ask ourselves: what if the real tragedy is not failing, but never allowing ourselves to dream at all?
How many dreams do we never speak aloud about? How many words of hope stay unspoken? How many precious moments slip away because we are afraid to try? We wait, always waiting, for the perfect moment, for certainty, for a sign that says, “You will not fail.”
Life never offers guarantees. Life is not about waiting for fear to disappear; it is about choosing to face it, walk through it and find beauty and wonder in its messiness and perfect imperfection
As parents, we often carry this same fear when we look at our children’s dreams. We want to protect them from pain, from disappointment, from the heartbreak of falling short and failing. We try to shield them from the struggles we have endured, hoping that by keeping them safe, we can spare them the hurt we know all too well. But what if, in our desire to protect them, we are also unintentionally limiting their growth.
In shielding them from failure, we may unknowingly be robbing them of the opportunity to discover their own strength and empowerment. We may believe we are helping by doing things for them. However, we may be taking away their chance to learn from their own mistakes and how to stand on their own.
“When we allow our children to face challenges on their own, we give them the priceless gift of resilience”
Failure is not a fear to be avoided. It is an essential part of growth. The beauty of life does not lie in waiting for everything to align perfectly. It is found in the lessons learned when things do not go as planned, when we stumble and rise again and continue to thrive in our perfect imperfection.
Every mistake is a stepping stone; every fall, a chance to get back up stronger. When we allow our children to face challenges on their own, we give them the priceless gift of resilience. We teach them that their worth is not defined by how many times they succeed, but by their courage to keep going, to fall and get up, no matter how many times they fall. True self-esteem is not built by avoiding failure. It is built by the strength to try, to fail and to rise again, every single time.
When we let go of our fear of failure and allow our children to steer their own path and empower themselves to shape their own future, we give them the greatest gift of all: the freedom to dream without limits, to explore without fear of judgement. We show them that the world is full of possibilities, waiting for them to discover their own path. They can only find their paths if we give them the freedom to walk them on their own.
Some dreams do become a reality not because they are flawless, but because we have the courage to chase them, even knowing we might fail. It is not perfection that turns dreams into reality. It is the willingness to try, to stumble, and to keep moving forward, despite the obstacles. When we allow ourselves and our children the freedom to dream, we create space for those dreams to grow into something real, something beautiful, something uniquely ours.
So let us dare let our children dream and let us dare see our children empowered to fail – without hesitation to appear, without fear of being seen, even when the paths before then seem uncertain. Let us brave our fears, so that both our children and we ourselves can soar higher than we ever imagined. For the truest form of strength lies not in avoiding fear, but in continuing to walk forward, even through it.
As Paulo Coelho cautions: “There is only one thing that makes a dream impossible to achieve: the fear of failure.”
Jessica Azzopardi is a counsellor and a member of MACP – Malta Association for the Counselling Profession.
If you’re interested in learning more about the counselling profession or would like additional information on mental health and self-care, visit www.macpmalta.org, www.facebook.com/ CounsellingMaltaMACP or e-mail info@macpmalta.org.
For more contributions by the MACP, click here. For more Child stories, follow this link.
