Fear of failing

So, I have this thing I do.  I have these great ideas and then I think them to death and they never get off the ground.  I hate that I do this; I’m not necessarily a procrastinator at heart (in fact, it bugs me when people can’t just do what they say and get it done).  But, I have this fear, I guess, of failing.

Failing is expensive.  It costs money to do the things I want to start and if I put the money into starting them and then nothing comes of it, was the money wasted?  Or did I just learn an (expensive) lesson?

Failing is scary.  No one wants to fall down – except maybe those people who rappel down mountains or jump off of bridges or out of perfectly good airplanes.

Failing is vulnerable.  People will laugh at my ideas or my failure or the mere idea that I even thought I could do this.

Failing is what everyone does.  Every day we fail in something; fail to pay a bill, fail at yelling at our kids, fail a test, fail a goal; fail, fail, and fail.  And yet, I don’t want to purposefully set out to do something that I MIGHT fail at.  

But, I don’t know if I’ll fail until I try.  And even if I fail, I might fail because of things beyond my control.  So, here I sit, worried that I might fail and failing to start which means I fail before I even begin.

So, do I try and fail?  Or Fail to try?