I'm very scared of failure, how do I overcome it?

I am a newbie, I find your writing very expanding and helpful. What advise can you offer a very scared to fail person?

I think that being very scared to fail is unhealthy for personal growth. I wrote something on this already at: http://thegayboybible.tumblr.com/post/138440062196/cultivating-bravery

But I’m going to try to focus on giving advice I haven’t given already.

1) Failure Is How We Learn And Grow - You learn so much more from failure than you do success. In BDSM that’s a really important thing. Learning that I’ve tied a rope too tight helps every sub after that moment. Failing to tie a knot teaches me what to change in future to get it down pat. A perpetual expectation perfection is a recipe for frustration.

2) Failures Of The Past Won’t Be Seen By Those In The Present - If you fail at an activity. Learn from it. Try again, and get it right going forward? Anyone who sees you perform the task you failed at perfectly will never know you failed. They only see the success. Example: I had a bad experience with a boy choking a bit while having a ball gag in his mouth. Now, I know to tell every boy to drool uncontrollably so that happens to no one else. (For the complete story see Ball Gags)

3) It Is Freeing To Not Have To Succeed Every Time - It is a lot of pressure to pull off perfection every time isn’t it? What if the activity you’re trying to perform or learn had absolutely no stakes. If there was no consequences and you could just perform whatever your task was as long as you liked… it might be almost relaxing. I have a few friends (gay men) who knit as a way of relaxing. No pressure, no need to get it perfect. More important to finish first and then if you’re happy with it. Give it away.

4) Fail At Some Small Things - So if small to no stakes can make it easier to make yourself comfortable at failure… Why not actively do something with the expectation of failure with low stakes. Try getting a circuitry kit, knitting, baking, or wood carving. Do it in private, and expect to fail. The sole objective is to become comfortable with failure so you can learn to do such a task better and cope with the emotions around it.

5) Failure Makes You More Human, More Relatable - Our society puts too negative a spin on failure. And it’s true that sometimes it carries a high price. But our civilization is built on iterative improvement. Iterative improvement is usually accomplished by failure. And just like I said earlier. You rarely see the failures that lead to the final product.

I hope this information helps. Check in with me later. Let me know if it helped!

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