Frozen by the fear of failure
Today, I decided to not let fear dictate my life as much. Let me explain.
This weekend, I was helping a friend with some electrical rewiring in his house. Mind you, I’m not an electrician but I try my best to understand how to do things in general.
When it came to put the breaker back on, nothing worked. It took me a few hours to finally realize I didn’t get it and he should get a professional’s advice instead.
Come Sunday, the guy comes in and tests everything as he should and finds the problem. Normally, I would fear criticism or being laughed at, but this time I was more upset at the fact I couldn’t find the answer: the comments (if there were comments in the first place) didn’t matter to me.
I often find myself frozen by the fear of not knowing something. I understand I can’t know everything, but it’s still something that bugs me at times.
Today, I started working and was facing yet another problem I had no clue what the solution was. I’d normally try my best to see what it is and stress about the fact I probably don’t have enough information about the issue to find a valid solution, but this time, I went with a logical reasoning, something that made sense but also has a high probability of not working. And I’m strangely ok with that.
This problem I’m currently facing isn’t a life or death situation as it’s simply a test so it’s not a big deal overall.
When you don’t have enough information, you have two choices: either you gather more or you try something. Being frozen by a fear of failure can’t get you really far.
Overall, I decided it didn’t matter if it worked or not on the first try as long as I keep trying or go find someone who could help me. No shame in that, I get it now. Check the ego at the door, we’re learning here.
What do you think?