There seems little point in trying when our chances are small that we will score big. But only when we accept disappointment can we realize our potential.
A basketball player tries to make a shot. (Photo by dotshock)
This article by student Jeremy Gitiba was produced out of News Decoder’s school partnership program. Jeremy is a student at African Leadership Academy in South Africa, a News Decoder partner institution. Learn more about how News Decoder can work with your school.
Many young people never apply for jobs, universities, sports teams or creative opportunities, not because they lack ability, but because they fear failing and losing faith in themselves.
Basketball legend Michael Jordan once said, “I’ve missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. Twenty-six times, I’ve been trusted to take the game-winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”
Fear of disappointment is a quiet but powerful force that shapes how young people approach ambition, effort and self-worth. While it is often mistaken for simple caution, this fear can mirror anxiety in its psychological effects, discouraging risk-taking and personal growth.
It develops in high-pressure environments and affects young minds. But confronting failure can become a pathway to fulfilment rather than defeat.
Disappointment is a feeling every human experiences … and needs to experience. Without it, there is little motivation to improve or strive for more. However, when disappointment becomes something to fear rather than process, it can destabilise a young person’s mental health.
Unlike obvious anxiety, fear of disappointment often operates quietly, shaping behaviour without being easily recognised.
Fear of failing
Throughout most of my life, I have existed in high-achieving spaces. In 2015, I joined a private football academy and enrolled in a private school widely regarded as one of the best in my country. At home, I saw my parents as people who had lived nearly perfect lives. These environments unintentionally set an early standard: excellence was normal, and anything less felt like failure.
Before entering these competitive spaces, I stood out academically and athletically. Praise reinforced the idea that being “one of the best” defined my worth. When that reality changed, at merely nine years old, my confidence shifted with it.
Although my ambition remained intact, my relationship with effort changed. I began measuring my value by results rather than growth, and glorified achieving more while working less.
In my final year of primary school, months before a national examination, I broke down in front of my mother, accusing her of placing unbearable pressure on me.
After talking with her, I realised the pressure I feared did not come from her at all. The expectations and consequences largely existed in my own mind. I was not afraid of disappointing others; I was afraid of disappointing myself.
Who are we if we don’t excel?
Upon entering high school, the story stayed the same. In the initial math tests, I was the highest in all three, getting 25 out of 25. No one else got full marks in two of the tests, let alone three.
But when final exams arrived, I did not commit myself, and it showed. Despite covering the same material I had already mastered, I earned only average grades.
Instead of reviewing what went wrong or refining my study habits, I abandoned the very strategies that had worked and settled for average results with below-average effort. This became the theme of my early adolescent years.
To avoid confronting the possibility that I was not the smartest student, I studied less and settled for being slightly above average. To avoid accepting that I was not the most talented athlete, I trained less and leaned on excuses, such as being younger than my teammates. Fear of disappointment did not remove my goals; it distorted how I pursued them.
Psychologists say this reaction is common among young people in competitive environments, where performance becomes tied to identity. Over time, fear of failure can lead to avoidance, not trying rather than risking falling short.
We create our own obstacles.
In her 2023 book “Never Enough: When Achievement Culture Becomes Toxic”, Dr Jennifer Breheny Wallace wrote that for many high-achieving youth, their self-worth is “contingent” rather than unconditional.
She wrote: “When children feel that their value is tied to their performance, they begin to view failure not as a temporary setback or a learning opportunity, but as a verdict on their worth as a person.”
This leads to what psychologists call “self-handicapping,” in which a student creates obstacles, such as procrastinating or not studying, so they have an excuse for failure that doesn’t implicate their actual intelligence.
The scale of this issue is reflected in modern statistics. According to the U.S. National Institute of Mental Health, approximately 32% of adolescents meet the criteria for an anxiety disorder, with academic and performance pressure cited as a leading trigger.
Furthermore, a 2019 study by two British researchers on “perfectionism” among students found that socially-prescribed perfectionism, the feeling that others require you to be perfect, had increased by 40% since 1989, significantly heightening the fear of failure.
Choosing effort over avoidance
As a child, I believed I could excel academically, play professional football and build meaningful friendships. Yet to avoid the pain of unmet expectations, I slowly stopped fully wanting these things. I held back effort, avoided deeper relationships and chose emotional safety over growth. Rejection and ambition felt like opposing forces.
My turning point came at 16. Struggling with depression, I realised how disconnected I had become from others and from any real sense of purpose. Reflection forced me to confront a difficult truth: in trying not to disappoint myself, I had failed myself.
Avoiding failure had meant avoiding growth.
So I changed. I stopped avoiding challenges and started pursuing progress, even when it meant falling short. The process was uncomfortable and filled with setbacks, but improvement followed quickly. Over time, fulfilment began to outweigh disappointment, not because failure felt good, but because it signalled that I was growing.
This struggle is echoed by global icon Taylor Swift, who famously addressed the paralysing nature of trying and failing during her 2022 commencement speech at New York University.
She challenged the idea that “not trying” is cooler than being ambitious, stating, “Never be ashamed of trying,” Swift said. “Effortlessness is a myth. The people who wanted it the least were the ones I wanted to date and be friends with in high school. The people who want it the most are the people I now hire to work for my company.”
Before turning 18, I ranked in the top 1% nationally in academics, played the most minutes on a youth football team competing against much older players and built strong friendships and completed community support projects.
Now, nearly 20, I hold a university scholarship, captain my school’s football team and serve in leadership roles within my community. These achievements did not eliminate fear of disappointment, but they proved it was survivable.
Fear of disappointment does not disappear overnight. It is confronted gradually by choosing effort over avoidance and growth over safety. My journey would not exist without my mother, whose steady support reminded me that failure is not the opposite of success, but often part of it.
For young people facing similar struggles, learning to accept disappointment may be one of the most important steps toward realising their potential. And for everyone, do not shy away from supporting others — your push of encouragement may just be responsible for the next Michael Jordan.
Questions to consider:
1. What does the author mean by choosing effort over avoidance?
2. How is failure a precursor to success?
3. Can you think of something you wanted to do but avoided doing it because you expected to fail at it?
Jeremy Gitiba is a poet, student leader and storyteller at the African Leadership Academy. His writing traces the quiet tensions between ambition and vulnerability, exploring fear, growth and becoming. Through prose and verse, he transforms uncertainty into honest narratives that speak to resilience, identity and the courage to move forward.