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Fear of Failure

Peyton

Peyton

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Feb 2, 2006
1,615
0
Does anyone else have a really difficult time with failure? Everything in my life so far (the big stuff) always works out and in my favor but I work very hard to keep it that way.

In my personal life (not on here :eek: ) I have a really hard time with it. I have it ingrained in my mind to believe that there is a perfect, set, one-way to do everything, and any deviation is wrong. (this applies to me only, I don't hold it up to other people).

I can apologize if I am wrong on something, but I hate being wrong as it is a direct reflection of my character (in my mind) and I hate coming off as if I have any problems at all. Relatively, I have very few, but still, its a very difficult thing to live with.

It could possibly come from people expecting the moon from me, but I am a very uncompromising person that cannot stand failure. Does anyone else struggle with this?

Any tips?

Is it because I'm 20? :confused:
 
You'll get over it.

(Which basically means that you'll learn most everything works out one way or the other and it's not worth fretting over too much.
 
Nope, I am not scared of failure. As long as you did your best, you have something. Plus, you shouldnt be trying to live up to others expectations, just your own. You will go insane if you try to impress everyone. Live your life as you want to.
 
Failure helps you learn. If it doesn't work out in your favor, figure out why, and retry.

As for the "Perfect, set, one-way to do everything" and "Failure". You'll learn that life will force you to come to terms with something else... "Good enough", as not everything in life if worth the strive for perfection.
 
cycocelica said:
Nope, I am not scared of failure. As long as you did your best, you have something. Plus, you shouldnt be trying to live up to others expectations, just your own. You will go insane if you try to impress everyone. Live your life as you want to.
Click to expand...

well, right, but I have these unbelievable expectations of myself is the problem. Everyone else just comes to expect it. Also, I never really know if I did my best. example, I graduate from college on sunday with 2 degrees. I'm 20, I think to myself, if I could do it that fast, I could have probably done it by the time I was 19, 18 etc.

Is it a mental disorder do you think?
 
To quote Batman Begins:

"Why do we fall?"
"So that we can learn to pick ourselves up."

Failure isn't a bad thing unless you make it a bad thing. Learn from your experiences, and know that no one is perfect. It's going to happen at some point in your life, so don't let it get to you or ruin things for you.

And yes iGary that quote was just for you. :p :cool:
 
I'll paraphrase a story I've heard about one of the best basketball coaches ever. He told his team that at the end of the game, no matter what the score board says, only they as individuals will know if they won or not. Did you do your best? Did you leave everything on the court? Did you support your team to the best of your ability? If yes, then you won. If no...

Thats a great way to look at things. Even failure can be a victory. For example, if you were to (to stay with the basketball theme) play Kobe Bryant one on one in Basketball, there is no way in hell your going to win. But perhaps you made a couple of good plays. Maybe you blocked one of his shots. Maybe you made him put forth a lot more effort than he anticipated. You lose by a score of 52 - 4... You can still hold your head high.

Aaaaaaaand. That will end the longest and most introspective post (I think) of my Macrumors career. Thank you.:D
 
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