Fear Of Making Mistakes? Why and How To Overcome

Do you find yourself trying to be perfect no matter what you do? Do you feel stressed out, even about the little things, because you feel like everything has to come off in a perfect way?

In this article I’m going to share with you why we initially have the fear of making mistakes, what it does to us, and how to overcome it.

I suffered with this problem for years and it crippled my decision making abilities. In fact, it actually kept me from doing what I truly loved and felt passionate about. In my life I have gotten good at a number of things: drumming, writing, and snowboarding to name a few. I did this enough times to finally realize that I had some pattern going on. Why was it that whenever I started seeing some modicum of success I “magically” stopped what I was doing? While some say this was the fear of success it was more about the fear of making mistakes.

Whenever you get better in a certain profession you naturally start to take on more responsibility. And when you start to take on more responsibility the stakes become higher. This is natural to life. However, I realized that as soon as the stakes got higher for me I’d worry about messing up or failing. I’d think to myself, “But what if this goes wrong? What will people think of me? What will people do to me?” I became a perfectionist. Now there’s two things about perfectionism.

#1 You cannot be perfect at anything. It’s unrealistic.

#2 It paralyzes you from taking any action at all. You don’t get any closer to your goals.

What I realized about myself was that the higher standards I had around being perfect the more fear I had about being successful and actually doing what it was that I wanted to do. You will never be perfect at everything. Learning and making mistakes is a natural part of the process. And people and the world are much more compassionate about making mistakes then you think.

It’s natural for us to make mistakes. Learning anything new we’re guaranteed to fail. It’s a natural part of life. However, what isn’t natural is when we berate ourselves for not being perfect. The reality is that the need to be perfect stems from childhood, our environment, and increased pressure to perform.

If we truly fear making mistakes then this in a very large part is a pattern that started with us in childhood. Perhaps, we had overbearing parents who demanded perfection and near perfect results instantly. If this was the case, then we’ll find our minds bombarding our beings near instantly. Every time we make a mistake then our parent’s voice comes into our head bombarding us with criticism to be better and perfect. If you have this issue then it’s definitely an inner child issue that needs healing. If you suspect that you have this then please reach out to me and we’ll go deep diving and integrate so you can move onto a healthier version of you.

The nature of free enterprise determines that the people who are most dedicated to their product and services will rise to the top. There is a lot of pressure put on us around being perfect right out of the gate. If we want to be “successful” by the world’s standards then we need to perform incredibly high, or so we think.

While performance is important when it comes to all things in life there are other things that people value more than performance. And that is things such as quality, true care, kindness, empathy, and understanding. We cannot expect to perform well all the time and near perfectly. It’s just not sustainable and not healthy. So if you’re worried or anxious about not performing to the standard that you think will bring you success. Slow down! Realize that you’re going to make mistakes. There are other qualities that you can embody that will make up for your lack of performance when you make mistakes.

If you fear making mistakes then acknowledge them and accept that it is unevitable. You will make them. Be gentle with yourself yet hold yourself accountable and see that you can never be perfect.

Deepest Blessings and Pranams!

WANT TO GET IN TOUCH?