Fear of Failure and Fear of Rejection

Today I learn that worrying makes sense. Worrying in a lot of small things help to cover up my biggest worries. When I worry about small things, then I do not need to think about my biggest worry. At the end, I only try to address things which are on surface while the root causes are not solved.

I often say that I am not good in time management, or my common sense is not good. Or that I am easily stressed. But all these cover my biggest worries, fear of failure and fear of rejection. I have never totally failed or totally been rejected, so it becomes a what if scenario, thinking that I would not be able to stand it when those things happen. Those are uncertain. And unless I practice of addressing those fears, other things will remain. For example, my indecisiveness is correlated with my tendency to avoid failure. My inability to say not stems of fear of rejection. Or even the perfectionism itself may come out with fear of me rejecting myself.

This also reminds me that if I want to remove my little worries, I need to find another coping mechanism to address my main worries. Otherwise, I will tend to cling on those little worries as they have proven themselves to alleviate my main worries to some degree, at least in short term.

So, let’s keep asking, so what if I fail? So what if people reject me? This would also help me to reflect on how true it is in my belief of Jesus who has promised to be with us no matter what and the assurance that He has accepted us.

Losing momentum when I have time

In these past few days, I was doing things one by one but could not finish what was planned. So I desire for more time. Interestingly, right after lunch when I am supposed to have free time, I lost momentum and not feel like doing anything. I feel sleepy, perhaps I ate too much. Another reason maybe because I want to do a lot of things. So when I have the time like now; interestingly I do not want to do anything.

Let's accept this situation and move on.

It takes an effort to maintain good habit

After 10 months of trying to write at least 5 mins a day, this month I kind of loose the discipline to do it. It reminds me that good habit is not automatic. It is hard to maintain. It takes an effort. Because when we don’t, we are building a habit not to do it. 

Just like the last time I wrote was on 10th Nov. It was still early in the month. Then I went for a business trip for 1 week when I did not try to write for 5 mins even when I was on the plane for hours. Now it is almost a week after I am back and finally try to write again. 

There is no use of criticizing myself. The more constructive approach is to acknowledge that I have not been doing it, let it go, and move on. Let’s try to write again for 5 mins. It does not have to be longer to pay back. Let’s start it over. 

There are two things to maintain a good habit. One is a reminder. Second is the effort to do it with prioritizing it over others that are also important. A reminder is good. For example, I bought Lumo Lift, a posture coach, which will vibrate if I slouch. Without it, I often forget and not realize when I slouch. The second one is the willingness to spend effort. In the case of the posture coach, it is relatively easier as I just need to change my posture immediately, which is less than 5 seconds. But when it takes effort, like this writing of 5 mins, it is then we start to be tested on whether we are willing to stop and do something for 5 mins before moving on other tasks. This would be a foundation if we have another good habit such as exercise which requires us to stop and exercise for even longer time - 30 mins without cooling down or traveling time. So let’s do one by one, it is ok to fall, accept it, and rise again.

When I start comparing, remember my original objective

I have the automatic habit of comparing. Whether it is to other people, my past self, or my ideal self, my life seems never stop from being in comparing state. Most of my day I would start with fear of not being able to maintain or improve from yesterday. When I heard people talking, I will start comparing myself with how talented or knowledgeable they are and why I couldn’t be as good as them.

When I start comparing, that means the objective has been changed to winning the competition, to be better than the benchmark which usually does not happen and so it’s frustrating.

So I need to stop comparing. But what I would do then if I am not comparing? The answer is remember and focus on my objective. Why am I doing it? If it is because I want to be able to do something, then continue doing until I can do it regardless whether others are faster or better or consume less resources than me.

This also applies when I am not sure what to do next. The objective is to use the time wisely. So whether or not I made the good decision or not, it is still better than stoning. So take the courage, be ready to fail and get back up again. Even after I am writing this, I will for sure fall again. But when that happens, remember that the objective is not to avoid falling, but how to be able to get back up everytime I fall.

Treating myself as my best friend

A question given to me was that would I treat others as the way I treat myself upon a failure? What do we do when we see a 1-year old fall down in the process of learning to walk? Wouldn’t we be clapping to encourage the baby? What would we say to our best friends when they make mistakes and feel down?

If it is different from the way I treat myself, the question is why is it so? Why am I different than them? Am I very special that I treat myself differently? I may say that it is normal to be upset as I look like a baby in the midst of adult in terms of resilient skills. But why don’t I say that if my friends are in that position? Do I think myself as special? Why do I have higher standard on myself?

Today I am reminded again to be kind to myself, to be patient to myself, to learn to give praise to celebrate each progress and encouragement to lift up from each failure.

Just like this writing, there is no need to judge myself. There is also no need to fear of the future, that is whether I can maintain my good feeling like this. The more important thing is to encourage myself again when I fall. Stop comparing myself with others, stop comparing myself with my past achievement. And learn to be friend of myself.