REAL TALK: How I Faced My Fear of Failure
One week ago, I conquered my greatest fear. And all I have to show for it is this massive, oozing shark bite.
Just kidding.
There are plenty of things that scare me. Horrible diseases I read about on the internet (I have ALL OF THEM), rip currents (the ocean really is trying to kill us all), and for some reason, being in restaurants when they are about to close (true terror is inconveniencing waitstaff). But my greatest fear, the one that has hobbled me throughout my life, is so very large that it’s difficult to disentangle it from my overall character: that would be my crippling fear of failure.
I don’t think that fear of failure is exclusive to kids who were fast-tracked into the “gifted” classes, but when a lot of things come easily to you, it can be downright baffling when other things require actual effort. The first thing that I ever solidly failed at was math, which didn’t even bother me that much because math is terrible (sorry nerds, but these are just facts, like 8 times 8 equals 68). So very early on, I learned a failsafe trick for never failing: never try.
Brilliant, right? If no one ever catches you trying, they’ll never catch you falling on your face. If you act like you don’t want anything, no one will ever know you want things you don’t have. It seemed like irrefutable logic, and a risk-free way to live my life.
The trouble is, it came to define my life. I’ve always been blessed (and cursed) with big dreams. Dreams so big they scared my parents, and truthfully, scared me too. I wanted to be write words and sing songs that tell the deepest truths of my heart to other people. Lots of other people! I wanted to be a success.
I wanted it so badly that the fear of chasing those dreams and falling short was enough to stop me in my tracks. I was so afraid of failure that I never began. I remember being twenty-four and waitressing at a horrible, greasy restaurant, and staring at the chain-smoking 60 year-old I worked with and thinking, “that’s going to be me.”
And that thought, at long last, was enough to make my fear of failure seem slightly less terrifying than my fear of becoming a woman with nothing to show for my life. So I took the terrifying step of thinking of writing as a concrete task, rather than an abstract. (It’s astonishing how much more likely you are to have a writing career if you try ACTUALLY WRITING.) And through luck and grace and generosity I got the first writing job I tried for. Since then, I’ve been rejected for more jobs than I’ve gotten (I got rejected this morning!) but I’m still here: a working writer. My failures seem insignificant next to that fact.
Which brings us to last week, and the big fear that has always stood like a shadow behind my biggest dream. I have always been, more and before anything else, a songwriter, and last week (with a lot of nudging from my family) I got up the nerve to get on a big stage with a bunch of other songwriters and sing my songs.
My hands shook and I was certain, just entirely certain, that when my turn came I would forget all the chords. I was sure I would fail. But I didn’t fail. I didn’t because I practiced. I didn’t because I let everyone in that audience see exactly how much I cared. And I’m pretty sure I succeeded. (You can actually listen to my first song here and decide for yourself.)
Of course, the thing about a fear as big as my fear of failure is that you don’t just conquer it once and call it a day. You just keep trying, and failing, and trying again.
Do you relate to this SO HARD?
