Hi! Sorry it's been a while since I wrote on this blog. Do you ever just get overwhelmed with all the things you should be doing, the stuff you aren't doing "well enough", and the way you're spending (or not spending) your time? Do you ever get so lost in thinking of all the stuff you believe you should be doing, that it tires you out mentally and you end up doing nothing? Yeah, me neither...heh. Pfft! Who am I kidding?! I feel like we all go through some level of that in life.
You know what I think this is all about? It's about failing, and the immense ingrained fear we seem to have of failure. Somewhere along the path of time we decided that trying our best wasn't good enough if it meant we failed. Trying our best was only acceptable if the end result was awesome, or we hit a home run, got the job we applied for or the college we wanted accepted us. That's just dumb.
Why is it dumb? Many reasons. First: we learn the most effectively and quickly from our failures. Failures not only teach us what didn't work, but give us valuable insight to help us hone our reasoning skills. It basically helps us figure out how to see clues that lead us toward success. Second: failure is not the ultimate end. What do we actually think happens when we fail? The end of the world as we know it? Nah. We just try a new tactic after making some observations. Doesn't sound so scary after that. Now, certain things such as important tests sometimes are a one-shot-deal. You don't always get a do-over, but instead of thinking that a test score will determine the rest of our lives, maybe we can learn to rewire our brains. If something doesn't go well, we can have alternative plans or options. It never hurts to ask about a re-do, you don't have anything to lose after all. If not, you'll already have an alternate plan in place.
If we can try to master what our society tends to see as a glaring negative, maybe we can free ourselves to break those constraints. The amount of emotional and mental angst we put ourselves through while avoiding stuff we believe we should be doing, is time that can be much better spent. We can reduce our stress, be more productive in the areas we desire and control our present and futures at least a little bit more. I'm pretty sure that without fear of failing a test, we would probably do significantly better. We don't need to give in to that fear, but instead seize it and harness it.
Harnessing the fear of failure is an interesting concept to me, and I can't claim to have mastered it. In case you haven't guessed, I've spent quite a while lately mentally beating myself up for the all the stuff I'm not doing, not doing up to my personal standards, the stuff I haven't even tried because I'm not certain I can meet my standards or dreams, and the fear that I'll never achieve anything I had hoped to achieve. Lemme tell ya, it's a full-time job beating myself up that much. It's especially crazy for creatives because so much of our success is dependent upon our ability to be...well, creative. Nothing, in my opinion, saps creativity faster than stress.
So, to make a long rambling story short: the fear of failure causes the one thing we fear. We sometimes end up not even getting to the starting line, we botch things midway, or fumble at the end. Then when that happens, the weight of that failure sits on us and says, "See? you keep failing. You were right to be scared". Then a terrible cycle ensues because we have believed failing was the end, and a terrible end at that. So we try harder not to fail, but because we are not perfect we are destined to occasionally fail at things. Recipe for disaster, amirite?
The only way I can logically think to break that cycle is to be mindful about our fear of failure. When we start avoiding something in life, maybe we ask ourselves what we fear. What are the actual consequences we think we face? Maybe the fear is that we don't have a plan B, or that we don't have enough information to make good decisions. Those are things we usually have control over. I'm going to think about this more and figure out what I can do to help myself. Hopefully I'll have some stories to share about strategies that worked for me. If you also struggle with this, or have struggled with it and have ideas to master this fear, leave a comment to share those strategies. I hope this made at least a little bit of sense, otherwise thanks for listening to my ramblings!
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