Fear of Failure and Freezing
fear [feer]–noun1.a distressing emotion aroused by impending danger, evil, pain,etc., whether the threat is real or imagined; the feeling or condition of being afraid. ~Dictionary.com
For many of us fear freezes us from even beginning what may be our greatest accomplishments. As a novice wannabe writer, many times I stare at a blank screen taunted by a blinking curser screaming silently at me. Why? It's not for lack of an imagination. Sometimes I have trouble returning to the real world because my mind has ventured off into its own world. So why is it that I freeze? Why can't I put the words on the page? Fear. What could I possibly fear from a page? All of the parts of the definition above. Danger - The danger of others knowing how my mind works; how my heart feels. Evil - well, the evil of the world loves to tear us down into the nothings we fear we're made of. Pain - Ah! The pain of being picked apart, ridiculed, found out. Found out that we are not good enough. That the world will not accept us. More importantly that we don't meet our own expectations. Or maybe it's the fear that we what we expected - untalented, unimaginative, blah, boring, nothing special. What ever the reason, fear is powerful opponent for anyone, not just a writer. Fear can attack moms, dads, business professionals, the grocery clerk, the gal flipping through magazines at the beauty shop behind the counter. Why is that all she seems to do? Maybe it's fear that she couldn't do more. Who knows. Maybe she's lazy. I don't know. I do know that fear of so many things keeps me personally from moving forward on the many things my mind stretches out for and yearns to accomplish.
The greatest barrier to success is the fear of failure.” ~ Sven Goran Eriksson | |
“Each time we face our fear, we gain strength, courage, and confidence in the doing.” ~Unknown | |
And from my favorite:
“Each time we face our fear, we gain strength, courage, and confidence in the doing.” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson | |
Whatever your fear is, don't let it win. Don't let it kill the most precious gift you have...your accomplishments to come. You have a ton of them. Don't let fear freeze you out from being the you, you want to be...the you that you ARE!
4 comments:
Great F post (not meant to sound like I'm swearing). I did mine on a similar subject.
cheers,
mood
Moody Writing
Fear has never froze me in my steps. It makes me mad that it even so much as challenges me to fear it. Actually, it motivates me to conquer it.
Fear is such an amazing emotion. I think of fear as you have described it but also there is the other side of fear that motivates us to action. Motivates us to do something. The fear of living on the streets so we work to pay the bills. Great words I love to learn new words and about words from your blog.
I know exactly what you mean, it happens to me in lots of areas of my life.
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