The fear of being wrong

The fear of being wrong

We all do mistakes…
But for many of us, “owning” that fact is really hard, are we so afraid of being wrong.

Fear is probably one of the biggest life’s obstacles to emotional and physical wellbeing. Fear to do mistakes, fear of being wrong, not enough, unworthy, misinterpreted… It leads most of our thoughts and actions; usually, not the good way.

We think we are not enough good, competent, strong, worthy, beautiful, etc… We think it will be too much effort and time to learn new things, adapt to new paths. We think it is too complex / too expensive / too soon / too late…

And when we succeed to open ourselves to the possibility of “maybe”… then comes “What if”.

We won’t apply for a promotion: “what if” we can’t deliver? We won’t ask someone for a coffee: “what if” he/she says no? Change our plumbing ourselves: “what if” we do a mess? Buy more sexy clothes: “what if” it’s too sexy? We are afraid of being ourselves, “what if” others don’t approve who we are anymore? We’re even afraid it may actually work: what will we do then?

When a child learns to walk, he falls, gets back up and tries again
And everybody around applauses and celebrates!
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As adults, we forgot the try-fall-try learning path, and we forgot to cheer for those who stand up and try again.

If we weren’t afraid of being wrong while doing mistakes,
what would stop us from jumping, dream, try?
.
There is NOTHING wrong about trying
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Fear of being wrong / do mistakes overcomes all amazing possibilities, learning’s and successes that could become ours if we would jump and try. Fear leads us to stay in a secure and well known situation, instead of pushing ourselves in something new, different, unknown.

Let’s say you’ve been wrong, you did a mistake or you felt. Will the world stop spinning?

A mistake is something we didn’t plan or aim to happen
A failure is something we didn’t succeed to complete yet
.
Nothing of the above makes you a less valuable person
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The most common thing we fear about being wrong is what people may think. We have to learn not to bother because at the end, we have NO control on people’s thoughts. Ask a politician… the moment he chooses a party, 50% of the population starts hating him. He haven’t said a word yet that 1 in 2 will disagree with whatever he says or does, and the other half will trust and applause no matter what.

The second thing we fear about being wrong is to “fail”, not being enough or good.

You didn’t deliver on time? Maybe you lacked competencies: training exists – be happy to learn new things! You made the wrong decision? Maybe you lacked good info: next time, ask for more details. You left early on a really busy day? Who never had an emergency? You misbehaved? Excuse yourself and try to learn from it – don’t be unnecessarily ashamed.

You jumped, applied to a job and failed to deliver? Maybe it was too soon or maybe it was finally, not for you. Maybe it just gave you the necessary experience and knowledge to apply to another job that will better suit you!

You did not consciously plan to do a mess or to not deliver something. You TRIED
Who never did a mistake? I bet the Dalai Lama would agree he did… many times!
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Allow yourself to try. Chose and do things that resonate true inside yourself, which makes you happy, fulfilled, trilled. Allow yourself to do mistakes and embrace them because they allow you to learn new things, change, evolve and become better.

When you do something, do your best. This way, when you do a mistake / are misinterpreted / can’t deliver, you know you did everything you could and you know it felt right to jump. Remember WHY you did it. If the result could benefit improvements, then do so. Otherwise, be happy with your choices, behaviour, words and actions.

My personal hope is to keep try-fall-try all life long. I want to keep be playing in life, try news things and become a more complete and happier person everyday.

What about you? Ready to jump, try and enjoy the path?