Chapter 37
Break Free From the Fear Of Making Mistakes
One of the greatest hurdles that prevent you from reaching your goal is the fear of making mistakes. Multiple fears combine together and take the form of mistake phobia. For example, the fear of being mocked at on making any mistake, apprehension of getting depressed once you fail, of looking miserable in the presence of others while making a mistake, etc., combine together and results in mistake phobia.
TO ERR IS HUMAN
It is common human nature to make mistakes. In fact mistakes help you grow and evolve as individuals besides teaching valuable life lessons. If you do not make any mistakes, it implies that you are not working hard enough to derive the results that you actually want. In order to conquer mistake phobia, you need to do away with the concept of perfectionism which is an unachievable task. Perfectionism is overrated and impractical as it prevents you from trying out different things.
How to Conquer the Fear of Making Mistakes?
At the primary phase of any action, it is not possible to make the correct decision owing to lack of required information. Hence, in such situations, decisions are made on the basis of inadequate information. It is only at the subsequent phase, when you have already taken a decision, you get further information about the procedure, and conclude if the decision taken by you was really a mistake or not. You should keep in mind that your knowledge, emotions, feelings, instincts, and intuitions allow you to make all big and small decisions and it should not surprise you if at times they lead to blunders. Thus, you should give yourself the freedom to commit mistakes and lead a life without any regrets.
While some people dread the idea that making even the slightest mistakes may cause something horrible which can never be rectified, others believe that making mistakes is a mark of foolhardiness. Wrong notions and false expectations about being a perfectionist that you have set-up for yourself gradually leads to mistake phobia. Once you learn to construe mistakes in an optimistic manner, you learn to consider your blunders as a learning procedure. Mistakes that you make guide you throughout your life besides infusing a forceful potential of control and assurance within you.
Once you make any mistake, you may experience the tendency of demoralizing yourself for letting your family and friends down. But before beating yourself down in such situations, always remind yourself that the failure experienced by you is a golden chance to learn precious lessons from life. Failures are indeed the pillars of success and the lesson that you learn from your failures becomes the wisdom that you can apply in times to come.
There is yet another method of overcoming mistake phobia. All you need to do is start making mistakes on purpose. Proceed step by step to accept yourself as an imperfect person. Try putting yourself in certain circumstances that you usually stay away from because of your fear that always prompts that things will go wrong as you will end up making mistakes while pursuing that particular task. For instance, try visiting a newly opened bistro without doing any research about it; try discussing your weak points with other; or try doing something difficult that you have never tried before. When you implement this regularly, you will soon notice that you are at ease with making mistakes. In the initial stage, you may still be nervous and fearful of the entire process; however, don’t be disheartened and keep on putting your efforts to unchain yourself from this phobia. Soon you will be at ease outside your comfort zone, and will be confident enough to face different circumstances fearlessly.
So take a deep breath and bid farewell to your fear. Get ready to experience life and its challenges with confidence and optimism.