, 1 min read
Living with the fear of failure
Before you start wondering: no I did not fail at anything today. In fact, my life is rather smooth going and while you routinely get bad and good and not so good and not so bad reviews from time to time, all my projects are proceeding forward better than I had a right to expect.
But like so many people, I’m haunted by the constant fear that I may fail. I was reminded of how hard it is by the pressure some Canadian athletes have reported feeling at the Olympics these days. Constant fear of failure is hard because even if your life is beautiful and you succeed in everything, you are still focused on possible failures. Ok. I’ll admit. I’m a pessimist. Or rather, a realist living in a bleak world.
Why do I fear failure so much? Failure is a neutral or even positive force. In fact, many times when I failed, I’ve actually been glad of the failure and found positive things in it… I don’t know… You might not get in the school you want, but you end up getting in an even better school. You do not get to see the movie you wanted to see, but you get to see an even better movie. I suspect that there is a little cave man in me who fears he’ll get eaten by a dinosaur (yes, I know, I’ve watched too many Flintstones). Failure might be really bad… like having your feet in a dinosaur’s mouth and expecting the dinosaur to start eating you up.
What I know for certain is that fear of failure is a negative force in most of my life. It distracts me. Pulls me away from my family. Makes me dumber. Takes my eyes away from the road and on the ravin where my car will end up.