Fear of rejection, fear of failure, fear of success even—we all have our reasons for not pursuing what we want. If we don’t try, we can’t be rejected. If we never try to succeed, we can’t fail.
Many of us are in our own way.
A “Gifted” Kid, An Anxious Adult
It all began in my childhood, but doesn’t everything with thought patterns and mental stuff? I was a “gifted” kid growing up. Academic stuff came easy to me, and even through college, I never had to try really hard. I definitely worked hard, especially in college, but that was more a question of total workload than difficulty of workload.
But anyways, as a “gifted” kid, there emerges a strange thought pattern: you believe you’re smart. For relatively easy things, this is great for helping you excel! But for things that, no matter your intellect, cannot be done well without a lot of effort, it creates a conundrum:
If I do my best on this and I’m not amazing at it, that challenges my self-image as a “smart” person. Therefore, if I self sabotage and don’t try my best, if I don’t do well, I can just say “oh, I didn’t try, it’s fine”
It’s fear of failure, but moreover fear of success.
Fear of Success?
Obviously there’s fear of failure, but direct fear of failure is often met with avoiding that failure, working to prevent or overcome it. Fear of success is a manifestation of fearing failure.
You self-sabotage to prevent yourself from succeeding so that your identity doesn’t have to be challenged if you try hard and still fail, as well as fearing the change in identity of rising to a higher standard. If you succeed not because of intelligence, but because of hard work, that also challenges your identity!
It’s something I’ve been aware of for years and have actively worked on—I read Mindset by Carol Dweck and believe in growth mindsets but still drift into a fixed one. That’s because even as I improve myself, the fear and resulting self-sabotage are still there.
Up until fairly recently, I’ve struggled with losing weight. I know what I should and shouldn’t do or eat, but prior to recently, I’d like, get McDonald’s and beer even though I’m “dieting” so I have an excuse when I inevitably don’t hit my goals—it wasn’t my inadequacy, it was the junk food! I can’t intellect my way to a lower weight either when the only solution is discipline.
The same goes for the job hunt and pitching my freelance services—if I think I’m “overqualified” for a job and don’t apply, it guarantees I never have to worry about not getting the job. If I over-analyze any potential client, I can manifest 50 reasons not to shoot them an email, and if I never try I can’t be rejected.
If I know I’m not doing my best, I never need to question that sometimes my best isn’t enough.
Getting Out of My Way
I recently went through something in my personal life where I tried my best and still failed. I was in an amazing relationship for over two years, but it unfortunately ended. There were issues we were working through, and I was willing to do whatever it took to fix things. I tried my best, and it wasn’t enough—and honestly trying my best, I applied that effort to all the wrong things and just made it worse, but that’s enough detail on my private life.
But you know what? I survived. It sucked, especially knowing it was mostly or entirely my fault. While that heartbreak will probably be something that takes months or years to fully heal, I’m still standing. I hope she’s doing well, too.
This is to say that if I can put it all on the line and survive failing spectacularly and miserably in my relationship, why do I care about failing at less important things? Why can’t I get out of my own way? If I can survive frankly the worst heartbreak I’ve ever experienced, I can survive any rejection or failure.
So, I’m getting out of my own way. I’m not going to say I have suddenly changed everything about my life or how I think, but I’m trying. I’m setting goals and doing better.
How I’m Getting Out of My Way
In my freelance writing with MakeUseOf, I am aspiring to be the top contributor on the site for the month, and guess what? I’m probably not going to make it, but I’ll make decent money and prove something to myself in trying.
With my freelance marketing and content services, I keep loving the idea of clients, but because I fear both them saying no as well as the workload if they say yes, I just freeze when it comes to pitching. Thus, I am going to pitch 10 potential clients in 10 days—I’ll be making that into a video/post, so hold me accountable!
When it comes to playing the ocarina, I tend to avoid playing challenging songs or giving actual solo performances, not just because I’m a perfectionist and don’t enjoy some of that process, but also because I’m afraid that if I try my best, you all won’t like it. Welp, baby steps, because in my ocarina reviews, I’m throwing in more challenging songs for my sound samples.
On my YouTube channel (and blog), I often get in a good rhythm, upload super consistently, lose that rhythm because this fear holds me back from doing my best, fall behind, and miss around a month (or more) of uploads. Now, I’m working to develop at least a 2-week video backlog on long-form videos.
I’m talking as if this is in mid-June because as of writing this, it is. This post and its accompanying video were uploaded on July 1st but written on June 13th, and the video was recorded on June 17th. This backlog will also give me flexibility to occasionally do more challenging videos as well as free my schedule for my other goals.
Seeking Discomfort
All these examples I’m giving are, as Yes Theory puts it, to seek discomfort. Nothing could be more uncomfortable and painful as heartbreak, so really, I should have nothing to fear. It’s time to try my best, even if I fail 100 times along the way.
Next, consider watching my video or reading my post on making my own work experience. I pursued YouTube largely because I wanted a more independent career, but I was always hesitant to do other things for, you guessed it, getting in my own way. With my horrible luck in the job market, eventually the independent career path became the apparent safest, so see how I’m pursuing it!
Andy Cormier 