How to deal with your fear of making a mistake

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

The fear of being wrong is familiar to each of us. Initially, it was formed to protect us from real threats, but now it simply prevents us from achieving the desired goals. But you can and should cope with it.

How many times has the fear of making a mistake held you back from doing things that could radically change your life? And in the positive direction. How many times have you had to regret that in fear you missed the opportunities you were waiting for? Probably everyone can give a couple of examples of such cases.

I wonder if we could learn to walk in childhood if we were constantly afraid to fall? Can you learn to swim without taking off your life jacket? Skating without letting go of your daddy's hand? Unlikely. To get anywhere, you need to deal with the paralyzing power of fear.

Where did this fear come from?

The fear of mistakes is deeply rooted in our minds. It represents a response to what we perceive as a potential threat. The key word is perceive. These mechanisms were formed in our minds millennia ago to help us defend against real threats such as, for example, the attack of predators.

Now, what saved us from the lions comes into play when we have to make a decision related to a certain risk, or simply step out of our comfort zone. As a result, now these mechanisms only limit us and prevent us from developing.

The problem is that our internal defenses are poor at distinguishing between real and imagined risks.

The comfort zone is not just a hackneyed psychological concept. To go beyond its boundaries, it is necessary to overcome serious neurophysiological mechanisms. Stay within this zone and you will feel safe. And if you dare to climb outside, the internal protection system will turn on warning signals in the form of fear. Keeping you safe from the unknown and unfamiliar, your consciousness does what it has learned as a result of evolution.

Previously, this system protected us and our environment from death, that is, from a real physical threat. Now the threat is more emotional in nature. We are trying to keep our emotional security. And defense mechanisms still have a paralyzing effect on us.

How to deal with the fear of being wrong

1. Change your angle of view

What is error or failure? A real failure can only be considered one from which you have not learned any lessons. Facebook has publicly failed several times with its initiatives (for example, with the Beacon ad system and the Poke app for sharing photos, messages and winks). The company succeeded only because it was not afraid of mistakes.

Facebook's motto is Fail fast, fail forward. It can be expressed like this: do not hesitate for a long time, mismatch and move forward. This company understands that the biggest mistake would be not to try to go beyond the usual and become better.

If Facebook did not take risks, the company would gradually cease to exist. If it had used only the methods that worked five years ago, it would have become Yahoo, Twitter or Myspace, and not become one of the largest and most successful companies in the world with a market capitalization of $ 362 billion.

In the field of sales, a common aphorism is: "Each new" no "brings you one step closer to the" yes "". The more “no” you hear in one day, the better. This will mean that you have reached out to everyone you could turn to, and soon you will hear “yes”. Practice, get used to hearing different answers, and the fear will pass. You will move forward, it is inevitable.

2. Find the cause of your fear

What exactly are you afraid of? The reasons why we are intimidated by risk situations, change, and anything new in general are not the same. Are you afraid to make a mistake because you imagine the worst outcome, or because you are desperate to make everything perfect? Or because you are terribly afraid that you will be refused?

If you are going to start your own business, you imagine that if you fail, you will lose everything. What then? Will you be left without friends and family? You won't have a family anymore? Will you lose the initiative and passion, thanks to which you are going to start your own business? If you have the courage to start your own business, then you are the type of people that many employers dream of hiring. You are clearly not going to be out of work.

When you decide to move forward, you are simultaneously making the decision to keep fighting no matter what. And when you do this, amazing things happen. The worst scenario you can imagine won't even smell.

3. Confront Fear with Confidence

Confidence comes from making a decision, taking responsibility and publicly acknowledging that responsibility. Luck is known to be a reward for courage. And for confidence.

The world supports those who believe in themselves. Nobody wants to put a spoke in your wheels, no one is waiting for you to stumble. On the contrary, if you make decisions confidently and definitely, those around you will definitely respond and support you. Everything will contribute to your success. The necessary events will happen, the necessary circumstances will develop, the necessary opportunities will appear.

4. Take action

Another reason for the fear of making a mistake is that the task that we have to complete seems too difficult for us and we fixate on the impossibility of solving it. Look at the pictures of Everest taken from the base camp. They are so amazing that the ascent to the top seems absolutely impossible. In addition, storms fall on it, there is a cold of -50 degrees, so it seems that a person has absolutely nothing to do in this place.

However, hundreds of people climb the summit of Mount Everest every year. And most often these are not professional climbers, they are not distinguished by exceptional physical fitness. They are just people who have a goal and a dream. They all start out the same way: from the first step towards the top. Small steps add up, and soon you are gaining such speed and power that you can no longer be stopped.

5. Ignore fear

Daredevils surfing the big waves ride waves the size of a five-story building. These are aggressive monsters with colossal strength that inspires terror. It is simply impossible not to be afraid of such waves. To counter the fear that can paralyze and lead to death, many of the most skilled surfers do not look at the place where the wave crashes down.

We are all afraid of many things. Some of these fears can and should be gazed in the eye and then tamed. But there are fears that can lead you to the grave, and it is better not to come into contact with them once again.

6. Challenge yourself

Do something that is not directly related to the areas in which you would like to develop. Have you ever wondered why the various marathons and hero races have become so popular? People want to challenge themselves and find out what they can do. This is how willpower develops and the drive necessary to move forward is acquired.

When you manage to achieve some serious goals in one area, you realize that you can apply the same skills and abilities, the same perseverance and determination in order to achieve what you want in other areas. When you realize that with enough effort, exercising your body and mind, you can run a marathon, you realize that many other, equally difficult, tasks are also within your power.

Don't be afraid to be wrong. Be afraid in a year to be in the same place where you are now.

7. Remember that everyone is afraid

There is a common misconception that successful people have some extraordinary qualities and are not subject to fear. In fact, they just got their way through hard work, constant practice, and making the necessary decisions. Their fearlessness is a myth. And for many, this myth becomes a barrier to achieving goals.

In fact, courage does not mean the absence of fear. Courageous people challenge themselves and go exactly where they face their fears. Fear is quite normal, it is inherent in human nature. In fact, this is one of our defining characteristics. Fear is part of us.

When Game of Thrones hero Robb Stark asks his father how you can be brave when you're scared, Ned tells him that this is the only way to be brave.

Courageous people are not people who are not afraid of anything. These are the ones who were able to cope with their fear.