What does failure in life look like?
Today, I’ve read How to Be an Expert Fear-Driven Person by Sasha Chapin. Something counter-intuitive, but mindset changing, struck me about the last paragraph.
When my actions involve fear and anxiety, it’s usually because I fear that failing might mean that I fail at life in total. For example, I dread talking to people for the first time the most because I typically don’t expect people to want to talk to me. I find it more likely that I am a burden, do something wrong, or people want to avoid being seen talking to me.
So, sometimes, instead of being outgoing and extroverted, I close up or avoid social situations. I fear, if I don’t, that people will reject me or say something bad to me, which in turn tells me that I am socially unwanted and a bad person – in other terms: that I fail at life.
Now, what I learned through reading Sasha’s post is this: I don’t avoid failing at my life when I close up or avoid social situations. I usually feel miserable afterwards, and fall into self-diffusion mechanisms, like distracting myself by scrolling endlessly through social media feeds. That’s what I would call failure. Not having the courage to feel the fear and doing it anyway. Success is doing bold things that are prone to failure, neglecting your fear. Failure is doing what your fear dictates.
Source: Chapin, S. (2023) ‘How to Be an Expert Fear-Driven Person’, Sasha’s ‘Newsletter’, 10 February. Available at: https://sashachapin.substack.com/p/how-to-be-an-expert-fear-driven-person?utm_medium=email (Accessed: 12 February 2023).