There are many well-known expressions dedicated to the fear of mistakes. From them you can learn that it is human nature to make mistakes, and that only those who do nothing do not make mistakes. However, in each case, the causes of this fear may be different. Basically, there are only two main motives. The first of them is associated with society, and the second - with the person himself.
External causes of fears
Many people hesitate to do anything serious, not so much because they are afraid of failure, but because of the fear of public condemnation or censure. Often, such anti-motivation is the result of a hidden inferiority complex: a person is so dependent on public assessment that he loses the ability to make decisions independently.
This phenomenon often occurs in cases where the child was brought up by too strict parents who punished him for the slightest misconduct. The result of such upbringing can be a lack of self-will and a paralyzing fear of condemnation and ridicule in case of failure. As a rule, such people struggle all their lives with an imposed inferiority complex, not always recognizing its presence.
Sometimes people tend to mask the usual laziness and unwillingness to make decisions with the fear of mistakes.
Fear can grow from within
The internal reasons that cause fear of defeat are most often banal responsibility and a subconscious attitude to defeat. Basically, responsibility of any kind is avoided by people with an infantile character who do not want to accept "adult" rules. And the attitude to failure, which significantly reduces the likelihood of success, is the result of a pessimistic outlook on life and a biased assessment of one's abilities.
Naturally, a person who is sure of failure is likely to make a mistake, and several such failures in a row will lead him to think that it is best to give up trying to do something so as not to experience disappointment.
Overcoming fear and learning to learn from your mistakes is an important step towards personal development.
In addition, the fear of mistakes is characteristic of perfectionists, that is, people who persistently strive for excellence in any area. They make such high demands on themselves and the results of their actions that it is impossible to achieve them accurately. As a result, perfectionists enter the game only if they are one hundred percent sure of success, and the fear of failure keeps them from the rest of their actions.
What do you feel when you are about to embark on something grandiose and new for yourself: to finally create a project that you have been thinking about for a long time, to leave a job that has long been hateful and find another one, start your own business? What is the strongest feeling that comes over you? Enthusiasm? Determination? Ready for action? Why do you keep postponing this important business day by day and not taking any concrete steps? Be honest, you're just scared.
At the same time, you can look for “good” excuses for yourself: to start, you need some resources (time, money, like-minded people). It's time to admit to yourself that these are just excuses. The most important thing that slows you down is fear.
You are afraid that what you have planned cannot be carried out or that the result will not meet your expectations. It is the fear that “everything will go wrong and nothing will work out” that makes you postpone the implementation of plans for an indefinitely long period - in other words, do not start implementing your plans.
No room for error
Fear of any new undertaking is normal. Everyone experiences it when confronted with something unknown at the level of instinct: “you need to see what is there, beyond the line, is it dangerous and how to deal with it.” But if we, despite fear, nevertheless begin to act, everything is in order.
Another thing is when fear turns into a powerful deterrent that prevents you from starting to act. If you stop controlling it, trying to stay in your comfort zone, this zone will narrow more and more over time. It will become excruciatingly scary to take any new action, because it generates stress and shock, and a person is already used to avoiding these troubles at all costs.
At the same time, a person may think that everything is fine, and he completely controls the situation, not noticing that he has become a hostage to the fear of making a mistake. You can understand that fear is already totally controlling your actions and managing your life in several ways:
- Fear of trying something unusual, new.
- Avoiding difficult tasks and projects.
- Procrastination and the habit of leaving work unfinished. Often these signs are not a manifestation of laziness, but a consequence of the fear of “doing something wrong” and criticism from others.
- Perfectionism, or the ability to do only what you are guaranteed to do flawlessly.
What causes fear of this kind and how to overcome it?
The fear of making a mistake, like many other fears and complexes, is formed at an early age. If parents
- often criticized your work, whether it was a school assignment, a craft, or an assignment done “wrongly”;
- severely punished for misconduct;
- categorically discouraged the initiative and demanded to “ask permission” before you start doing what you planned -
they did everything to create in you the fear of any new undertaking. You have matured, but your "inner child" is still waiting for approval and permission to do what he wants. In advanced cases, such parental behavior can lead to OCPD (obsessive-compulsive personality disorder).
A public fiasco or other traumatic experience gained at an early age can also play a significant role in the formation of this type of fear.
The next stage at which the fear of mistakes is fixed (or formed in those who are more fortunate with their parents) is school. The system of school assessments is built in such a way that the student is not recognized the right to make a mistake: he does the work and receives material confirmation of the correctness / incorrectness of his actions in the form of an assessment that affects the overall final score. At the same time, of course, it is possible to “correct” the assessment, but it will still be taken into account when summing up. Such a system puts the child in conditions that are more severe than in adult life: having done his job incorrectly, the specialist has the opportunity to redo it, correct the shortcomings and get approval. The child has no such right.
Moreover, at a certain point, the attitude towards the student on the part of the teacher is formed on the basis of the sum of marks that he has already managed to receive during the educational process. Teachers are living people, and it is easier for them to “rank” students, dividing them into “weak” and “strong”. Once in the category of “underachievers”, it is extremely difficult for a child, sometimes it is impossible to get ahead from an outsider position. As a rule, this happens if the teacher or school changes, and the child begins to be assessed impartially, “from scratch”.
At the same time, it is somehow forgotten that the mark is only a conditional marker, which is used to mark the degree of assimilation of one or another specific block of the curriculum. At the suggestion of teachers, and often parents, it turns into an end in itself for the child. He begins to be terribly afraid of getting another “pair”, because. firmly knows - this is an irreparable step on the way to outsiders. And such a “training of fear” takes place over 11 school years!
By the way, it has been noticed that school “excellent students” and “good students” are more afraid of failure than “three students”. They are more trained in avoiding bad situations. It is not surprising that often it is students with average and even low academic performance who become more successful people. They learned from childhood that failures and mistakes are normal and have ceased or never learned to be afraid of them. They just did what they were really interested in, not participating in the general race of school perfectionists.
However, an adult differs from a child in that he himself is able to be responsible for his emotional state. This means that children's fears and complexes can and should be dealt with. You can also learn to control your fear of making mistakes. The most efficient way to do this
- The ability to set goals correctly;
- The ability to get out of your comfort zone.
Correct goal setting
Very often, the fear of failure causes a person to have difficulty setting goals. However, the skill of setting goals is easier to develop than to start fighting the fear of making mistakes. Proper goal setting helps a person figure out what exactly he wants, as well as find the best way to fulfill his desire.
It is believed that visualization is an effective way to motivate yourself to start moving towards your goal. However, research shows that if a person is in the grip of the fear of failure, this technique is not recommended: starting to visualize his success, he can become even more entrenched in his fears of failure and give up any attempts to implement his plan.
What is the best thing to do?
If the fear of failure is too great, start with small goals that you are sure to achieve. However, the goal should not be too easy - in this case, you will not have a joyful feeling of overcoming, which helps to build confidence in your abilities.
For example, if you are thinking about creating a computer game, do not immediately try to set yourself the goal of achieving a result. Start by developing the simplest prototype.
It all starts in modern reality, then the hero goes to prehistoric times, kills a monkey, which was supposed to turn into a man in the process of evolution, and then goes into space. On a planet living according to the laws of fantasy, he magically moves to an alternative Earth, where intelligent beings originated from dinosaurs, and from there he returns to the real world and saves his beloved.
But this concept was not destined to materialize. Instead of this global project, the developers focused on one simple idea: a normal hero operates in an abnormal world, and the inhabitants of this world perceive themselves as the norm. Gradually, this idea was transformed and acquired a visual embodiment in the form of a world after a nuclear apocalypse.
Will Smith calls this approach to planning the “one-brick” principle and illustrates very clearly:
When you start building a wall, don't you think, "Now I'm going to build the tallest, grandest, greatest wall in the world." You just start laying bricks. You put each of them as well as you can. Behind him - the next, and more, and more ... And so every day. In the end, it turns out that your wall is ready!
The one-brick principle allows you to gain self-confidence and focus on tasks that a person can take control of, without thinking about the frighteningly global scale of the entire project as a whole.
Of course, even small tasks should be related to your main goal. For example, it can be mastering certain skills, gaining knowledge that will be useful for the realization of your big plan. Do not forget to record the results, pay attention to each "brick", then you will have more starting opportunities for analysis and setting more general tasks on the way to building your "wall".
Learn to juggle
When IDEO founder David Kelly came across Juggling for the Complete Klutz by John Cassid, Juggling for the Complete Klutz, one thing struck him:
Almost half of this manual, unlike other similar books, was not devoted to teaching how to toss and catch balls, did not tell how to measure the force of tossing and the weight of an object. It was devoted to how to form the skill of dropping the ball. At first glance, this is terribly stupid. In fact, having got used to the fact that the ball will certainly fall, the brain stops perceiving this as a “mistake” or “failure”. He gets used to the fact that the fall of the ball is normal and stops sending alarm signals to the muscles, forcing them to strain unnecessarily.
David Kelly decided that this approach is the most effective in general in any teaching. Indeed, accustom yourself to the idea that mistakes are normal and inevitable.
A way to get out of your comfort zone
So that leaving the comfort zone does not seem like something catastrophically important, start with “trifles”. For example, why not pick up a new hobby? Choose an activity that you might be interested in, but at the same time completely new and different from what you have ever done before. It can be anything: drawing, playing an instrument, knitting, vocals, woodcarving, wickerwork - in a word, something that cannot be mastered immediately, within one or two lessons.
Naturally, in the process of mastering a new skill, you will encounter failures and mistakes. But this is just your hobby, which means there is no reason to make a tragedy out of every mistake. Worth a try again - do you want to finally master this skill? This “not serious” attitude will reduce anxiety about possible failures and help you learn not to attach too much importance to mistakes. You will gradually get used to the idea that this is normal, as in the juggling example.
The fear of feeling like a beginner and amateur will gradually give way to the understanding that mistakes do not interfere with learning new things. Once you reach a certain skill level, you will gain confidence in yourself. Over time, this feeling will spread to other, more significant areas of your interests.
And do not assume that self-doubt and fear of failure are an innate character trait that cannot be overcome. You have already proved that you are quite capable of this when you acquired the skill of walking at the age of one to one and a half. At first, you were also afraid to stand on your feet and it hurt to fall - but you learned to walk!
In the end, devoting at least a few minutes a day to something that can bring you closer to your dream is a more effective way than just sitting and fearing that nothing will work out.
P.S.
When we started working on Smart Progress, we were also tormented by doubts: is it worth starting? And yes, we were scared too. But fear is normal, you can just ignore it and get down to business. In the end, "interesting" and "like" become stronger than "scary." And now new users are joining the project, there are more and more of them, the process has been launched, and I want to continue without stopping halfway.
And the confirmation that the resource we created is a really necessary and useful thing is the letters of our users, grateful reviews and, most importantly, the realized goals of the project participants.
We are far from thinking that everything done is perfect, but the experience gained helps us develop, act more consciously and clearly formulate the tasks that still have to be solved.
We are moving towards our goal, and sincerely wish you the achievement of the goals that you set for yourself.
Don't be afraid to start. It's scary to stay in place without even trying to change anything.
The fear of making mistakes is familiar to everyone. This anxious feeling allows a person to avoid hasty decisions and the consequences associated with them, but often it also slows us down, preventing us from taking actions that lead to success. However, a person is able to overcome the fear of failure and continue to move forward. Think about whether a child can ride a bike or skate if he refuses to try again after the first fall? Will he be able to learn to swim if he does not remove the rubber ring? Probably not. Fear of failure affects an adult in a similar way - it blocks the path to success, preventing a person from making new attempts.
Fear of error (scientific name - atichiphobia) at first glance may seem a product of our time or the result of personal failure. Judge for yourself: society craves new achievements, sets the limits of success, makes you achieve something so quickly that a person is unable to realize his actions.
Such a structure of society can provoke many situations that traumatize the psyche. The most tender age for perception is childhood, and which of today's children has not encountered an overly demanding teacher or parent? Hence the fear of doing something that will entail the censure of an authoritative person.
More importantly, the fear of making a mistake has an evolutionary basis. It has not only conscious, but also unconscious causes of occurrence. In the process of the formation of the human species, the fear of committing new, seemingly unsafe actions protected representatives of the Homo genus from injury and death.
Due to the imperfection of the work of instincts, which once protected a person from flame and sharp teeth, became stronger in the subconscious and continued to work already in the modern safe environment. The instinctive fear of committing unfamiliar actions responds equally well to both the likelihood of a real threat and an imaginary one.
A person who is afraid of mistakes is forced to remain in the “comfort zone” and loses the chance to develop freely, gain new experience and learn new skills. The fear of making a mistake narrows the range of possible actions of a person, forcing him to exist in a limited mental space. This can lead to personal stagnation or even degradation.
How to deal with the fear of making mistakes?
Here are some examples of methods that will help overcome the fear of making a mistake. Immediately make a reservation that they are not universal and are not suitable for everyone. In addition, for many, fear reaches such a degree of intensity that it is difficult for them to even begin to implement the following recommendations. If the fear is too strong to start moving on the path of getting rid of it on your own, it is better to contact a professional psychologist who will help you to go on the right path. One such specialist is a psychologist-hypnologist. Baturin Nikita Valerievich.
positive outlook
Try to consider any result of your action as a useful life experience, even if it seems to you an absolute failure. Think for yourself: if everything went as planned, and not as it actually happened, then you would never come to the current conclusions, results, and to a real understanding of reality. You would never see what happens if you do this and not otherwise. And even if this experience turned out to be negative, in the future you will have something to compare it with, and therefore a successful combination of circumstances will be even more appreciated by you.
At first, these thoughts will be quite strained, and it will be difficult to accustom yourself to think in a similar vein. However, gradually you will get used to this way of thinking and will be able to draw really valuable lessons from the circumstances. For example, one of the richest companies on the planet - Facebook - has a motto, which is conventionally translated as "Move, but move." The company's experience confirms that if its leader did not take risky decisions, he would never have come to the success that he has now.
There is another catchphrase in marketing - "Every "no" takes you one step closer to a "yes"". This can be interpreted in different ways: each refusal makes it faster to meet the right client, or that each refusal makes the salesperson be more sophisticated and successful. One way or another, this principle works - perseverance and experience make progress inevitable.
Awareness of the cause
Think about the real reason for your fears. What are you afraid of when you avoid doing something? What can this lead to? Maybe you are afraid of a non-catastrophic result, but a refusal or a fall in your authority? How tangible and critical will be the consequences of your oversight? Do they look as terrible as you fear them?
Think about the opposite: what will you get if you get down to business. Imagine what you can gain if you take responsibility for the risk. Realize a simple truth: the world around you is not an evil creature hostile to you. No one will put up obstacles for you without good reasons, and therefore it is worth trying to do it - and the world will help you move on.
Movement without stopping
In the planned business, try to follow the principle of "eating the elephant in parts." Metaphorically, this can be represented as follows: in front of you is an elephant that you need to eat. When you look at a whole carcass, the task seems insurmountable to you. You think about how huge this carcass is and that you will never be able to handle it.
However, if you divide the elephant into small parts and eat it gradually, then in time you will manage. It’s the same with other things: at first the task seems too difficult for you, but once you make a step-by-step plan, everything is simplified. Small steps lead you to a big goal, the main thing is not to stop on your way, because with each step you become more confident and stronger.
Along the way, you will encounter fear more than once or twice. You need to challenge yourself: try yourself in something that scares you and seems impossible. Overcoming difficulties that are not typical for you will allow you to gain new experience and gain self-confidence, temper your character, and even find a different philosophy in your life. As you encounter different challenges, you become more prepared for the next challenges that arise.
Remember that all people have fears - this is normal and inherent in a person by his nature. It is impossible not to be afraid of anything. A person gains courage only when he looks his fear in the face and overcomes it time after time. You cannot overcome fear by ignoring it.
Should not become an obstacle on the way to a fulfilling life and to achieve success in various fields. A person is able to overcome this fear and lead a rich, harmonious life - his desire and a safe environment in the form of support from loved ones are enough. If your own strength is not enough, it makes sense to contact a specialist who will help you choose the path and means to achieve.
