“The greatest mistake you can make in life is to be continually fearing you will make one.” – Elbert Hubbard
When I was younger, I feared making mistakes because I thought it would make me look dumb. I never asked questions in school and figured I would just look up the solution afterwards (even though I rarely did). But what that did was put me further behind. Instead of asking a question, one that may have been on other people’s minds as well, I chose to not understand something. Talk about dumb? That’s a dumb decision!
As I grew older, my fear of asking questions has disappeared, but I still battle the fear of not making mistakes. It’s something that I may always have trouble with, but as long as I remain aware of it and try to fight against it, I will keep improving.
By the way, if you understand what I’m talking about, don’t feel bad. This is very common, especially if you have always been told that you’re good at something. For example, while I don’t know if he has ever come out and said it, I think even LeBron James experiences this too. With his mixture of attributes (height) and skill set (jumping ability, coordination, etc), I think he would have been a great candidate to win the slam dunk contest. There’s no guarantee he’d win, but he was capable of performing dunks that not many other players could imagine. But, to all NBA fans’ chagrin, he never participated in a dunk contest. Instead, he did “participate” in the Skills Challenge. I put the word participate in quotes there because if you go back and look at the Skills Challenge he was in, he looked like he was in half speed – like he wasn’t even trying. Once again, I feel fear is the culprit here. If he tried his best and lost, or if looked like he was trying his best, what would that say about his greatness? In my opinion, nothing. He would still be one of the greatest to ever play. But I think the fixed mindset of him always needing to be the perceived best got to him and his fear of making mistakes/failing led to his half-hearted performance.
That being said, everyone experiences fear. You can run away for a little while, but ultimately, you need to face your fears. Why not get it over with and face them now?