Overcoming My Fear of Failure

Fear of failure has always been a part of my life.

I was eleven years old when I first moved to Australia. By the time I finally allowed myself to speak English, I was almost twelve.

I remember mumbling “How do you do?” to our neighbor Harry one day and he was completely taken back. You see, Harry was teaching us English for over six months and had never heard me speak. (I used to mime so no one could hear how horrible my  pronunciations were.)

Growing up in a family of over-achievers, I set my own expectations so high that I was always truly petrified of failing. When I faced with a challenge, I can successfully talk myself out of it by asking: “What if I am not good enough?”

The worst case scenario is not to even give it your best shot. I have learned to set the right level of MY expectations while I was studying Computing Science: I excelled at subjects like “Project Management” and “Simulation and Modeling”; I was mediocre at Financial Accounting but I was at peace with myself. I realized that it is OK to be average on “some” things. I didn’t want to be an accountant anyway.

The key to overcoming fears for me is to give myself the PERMISSION to do it. (The fear may not go away, but I am not going to let it take control.)

In 2010, I am totally ditching the “What if I am not good enough?” question. After all, there ARE upsides to failures in life.

I am going to focus my energy on becoming a prolific blogger. The fear of writing a blog that suck may not go away, but I am going to stop playing safe and give myself permission to just write, even if some of them will be  bad ones. (Tip: if you get bored with my blogs, you can easily navigate to my favorite bloggers such as Meg,  Mark, Amy, Dan, Jason and many more listed on our blogroll.)

It is hard to fail, but it is worse never to have tried to succeed. – Theodore Roosevelt

May you be blessed with the strength to succeed!