The way I see it...

Fear of Failure

Is the ‘thought of the week’ (“Anything I’ve ever done that ultimately was worthwhile...initially scared me to death.”) true for you personally? It is for me. I don’t know why, but I always have this fear of failure. Maybe I’m defective in some way or maybe it’s just the way we humans are built.

I think it’s easy to do something that you know you’re going to do well and succeed at. Something that you might not be good at? Not so easy. My 30th birthday will be knocking at my door come this summer and by this time in my life, I know what my strengths and weaknesses are.

Things I’m terrible at: math, sewing, drawing, reading directions and assembling anything and the list goes on (and on). Although I am a competitive person and I do like a challenge, I always get that uneasy feeling in my stomach and that awful thought creeps into my head: “What if I’m not good enough?”

I’ve had this happen a million times to me in my life. Then, I just decide to do it and the thing I usually end up worrying about isn’t near as bad as I made it out to be in my mind. I’m a head case! I think I always have been and I probably always will be.

I have a challenge, that will, for the time being, remain nameless. I’m scared to death that I’m going to fail. I know with hard work I can achieve this goal, but what if I don’t...? I keep going over this again and again in my mind.

If I decide to face my fear of failure head on and do it, I will be sure to let you all know. After all, what’s the worst that could happen? I succeed or I fail and learn something about myself? Looks like this column will have to be continued, but that’s just the way I see it.