At her Harvard University commencement speech, “Harry Potter” author JK Rowling offers some powerful, heartening advice to dreamers and overachievers, including one hard-won lesson that she deems “worth more than any qualification I ever earned.”

She says, “What I feared most for myself at your age was not poverty, but failure. “

Se continues, “Ultimately, we all have to decide for ourselves what constitutes failure, but the world is quite eager to give you a set of criteria if you let it.”

Here is the video

J.K. Rowling Speaks at Harvard Commencement from Harvard Magazine on Vimeo.

My thinking is there is nothing more crippling than the fear of failure. Get over it. Move on.

I,myself, have been driven by fear of failure and it took me time to face it. Failure teaches you things that you would have never found out about yourself…it makes you stronger.

You must believe in YOURSELF. If you are not to believe in yourself, then why would someone else believe in you?

The fear of failure is one beast that needs to be tamed and not surrendered into. Don’t take it lightly, if you don’t confront it and get rid of it then you are doomed to fail. I can bet that this is the single biggest challenge why most people never act.