48 MANTRAMAGAZINE.COM
“I want to
make sure I
come off as
(blank).”ull disclosure: not knowing what I was doing
used to absolutely terrify me. I avoided this
feeling at all costs. And the more I avoided
this feeling, the more terrified of it I became over time.
( Funny how that works, isn’t it? ) I have spent a lot of my
life deeply afraid of what it would mean to not “have it
all figured out,” which unfortunately means I have spent
a lot of time trying to gain approval from others and do
things “the right way.”I realize now that somewhere along the line in
childhood, I developed the belief that I was “supposed”
to know how to do all. of. the. things. ( This might sound
ridiculous to some, but I am fully aware that many of us
go through life with this lens and mindset .) In my young,
impressionable brain, I had decided that not knowing
what I was doing somehow translated into the f-word.
No, not that one. Failure. And to me, failure meant that
I wasn’t good enough, smart enough, likeable enough,
pretty enough, nice enough, confident enough, talented
enough, fun enough, interesting enough... you get the
idea.This fear of failure eventually seeped into all the corners
of my life. I carefully avoided activities that put me
outside of my comfort zone. I didn’t engage in things
that I thought I wasn’t good at or didn’t know how to do.
Growing up, this meant I floated from hobby to hobby
without really committing to one. I remember dropping
out of AP classes because I was afraid I wouldn’t get an
A. I stopped pursuing choir because I couldn’t handle
the evaluation of myself. I enjoyed theater when I was
younger, but the thought of auditioning in front of
people was too much to bear, so that quickly became off
limits too.Kristen Suleman, M.Ed., LPC“How did
that
sound?”“Did that
seem rude?
Was I talking
too much?
Was I talking
enough?”This faulty thinking meant that anything I didn’t
automatically excel in was not an option, and as you
can imagine, that meant that a lot of enjoyable activities
were off limits to me. Enter my young adult years.
Dance classes? Nope, I could end up looking ridiculous
and I wouldn’t allow it. Trying out new recipes? Nope,
too much room for error—better stick with what I
know. Leave my house on a whim without looking put
together? Ha, you must be joking.Those things might be for other people, but not for me.Without fully realizing it, my fixation with perception
and with perfection had me missing out on a lot of the
good stuff. The irony here is that I actually didn’t know
how much my need to know was impacting me and the
quality of my life experience. For starters, many of my
relationships didn’t seem to be as satisfying as I hoped
they would be. Meeting new people was the worst. The
inevitable mental gymnastics going on in my head
were not only distracting but completely mentally and
emotionally exhausting.“I hope they
have a good
impression
of me.”The F-Word
Fear of Failure
The F-Word
Fear of Failure
FF
the “right way”
to go to
therapy is to
go to therapy.
the “right way”
to go to
therapy is to
go to therapy.
CONTINUED
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