“It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well have not lived at all – in which case, you fail by default.”
– J.K. Rowling
Fear of failure, an almost insurmountable affliction of the human condition. It affects everyone at some point in their life, and sometimes the fear can be so crippling that it holds a person back from living a meaningful life. So why do we put so much pressure on ourselves to be perfect instead of accepting our flaws and failures, and recognizing that they are a fundamental part of who we are as people? Some may argue that society and the media play a large role, while others may pin it on genetics, however, one of the most common factors is prior life experiences that cause recurring emotional conflict. So how do we let go of the past and disregard this dread of disappointment?
As a student, I have always been above average, and as such have felt an immense pressure from those around me to continue to uphold this reputation and façade of perfection. In the past I’ve found myself having anxiety and panic attacks over small failures and mistakes and started to question why these seemingly unimportant blunders would affect me on such a deep emotional level. I finally came to the realization that it was from childhood experiences in primary school. As everyone knows, children have a tendency to be cruel, and as my peers didn’t have much to tease me about, they chose to mock my intellect. Every time I incorrectly answered a question or didn’t score perfect on a test, they would bully and ridicule me. This led me to associate errors, or on a larger scale failure, with humiliation and hurt. Although this is now a thing of the past, because these experiences happened during my formative years, it is much harder to disassociate the two. However, as soon as I identified the cause of my anxiety it became so much easier to dismiss the stress I was causing myself internally, as I could attribute it to something of the past and remove it mentally as a stressor of the present.
My experience with fear of failure has taught me some valuable lessons and although I wish I could have saved myself some pain, the truth is that learning from mistakes is something that is essential to our growth as humans, which is why it is all the more important to learn to let go and gain that experience. So if you too have this inevitable fear of failure, whether it be about public speaking, a performance, school work, your career, et cetera here’s my two cents on what you can do to minimize it.
- Identify your fear, don’t ignore it. When you ignore things they get internalized, bottled up, and become far more difficult to cope with in the long run.
- Realize that no matter what the outcome, it’s not the end of the world. If you screw up on a test or speech, it is not going to affect you for the rest of your life. One mistake, several mistakes, even a million mistakes do not make you a failure. If anything it makes you a wiser better person; and if you learn from these mistakes instead of repressing them, it guarantees you further success in the future. To quote Henry Ford, “Failure is an opportunity to begin again more intelligently.” Treat it as such!
- Don’t compare yourself to others. The surest way to bring yourself down is by comparing your achievements to those of others. That person who got a promotion, maybe they’ve been trying to get it for years and have been constantly shot down. Everybody builds on mistakes, don’t believe for a second that those around you have not failed times over to get where they are. If you cant accept and respect that, ignore it, it’s a part of life.
- Relax. That’s all. Even Olympic athletes have rest days and off days. Don’t wear yourself too thin trying to achieve the impossible.
- Don’t undermine your success by dwelling on failed attempts. Forgive and forget applies to yourself too.
So go out into the world, put effort into all you do, and try your best to let go of that fear of failure, because all it’s going to do is hold you back from the things you can achieve. You are a beautiful individual person with unique flaws, talents, and characteristics that no one can replicate. Put yourself out there and take advantage of the opportunities offered to you. Do something outside of your comfort zone, something that maybe makes you feel a little unsure, whether it be your first blog post (I’m actually terrified about posting this) or performing onstage, you can only grow from these experiences. Don’t fail by default by living in the shadow of “what if.” Go for it!
Have a great day lovely people of the internet! You are worth so much more than you know!
xxx
insightful idiocy 