Embracing Fear of Failure (or How I Learned to Not Worry about Getting There and Enjoy the Journey instead)

“You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, ‘I have lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.’ You must do the thing you think you cannot do.” - Eleanor Roosevelt

I started a new job a month ago, in a role that I had never been in. It is the hardest gig I have done in a long time, and there are times when I struggle to figure out how I will contribute. It is intimidating, scary, and makes me feel like an imposter on most days. As I understand myself more, I realize that this can be a good thing, and through this, I am learning to enjoy the journey of growth rather than the ultimate destination. This writing is an expansion of that thought.

First, some context. I grew up in a very comfortable household, with a fairly lavish lifestyle. There was no mansion, but I was well taken care of. That changed from my twelfth year on, but a lot of my inner foundation is based on living comfortably and not struggling or pushing my edge. And while that was nice growing up, it was also very safe, and there were not many opportunities for me to fail. Because of this, as I grew up, whenever I encountered the idea of failure, I would just...not do it. I had not conditioned myself to suffer or fail, so my primary reaction was to just turn away from it. Throughout my childhood, this manifested in my inability to initiate conversations (for fear of not being heard), ask out girls (for fear of being rejected), and have tough, displeasurable interactions (for fear of losing a precious connection that I had somehow lucked into). To this day, I can still feel the emotions that show up in the body when the thoughts of those events arise, and my first instinct still is almost always to run away or freeze, and almost never to engage. By staying in my comfort zone, and never truly experiencing failure or rejection, I did not allow myself to experience everything to its fullest, or what may have been on the other side of that fear. So, while things were easy, they never felt like a personal win. The best metaphor for this that I can think of is spending allowance money as a child vs. spending earned money as a teenager. The former came too easy. It was hard to appreciate the value of the money when I was receiving it every week from my father, so the record that I bought with it was not cared for, or enjoyed to its fullest. On the other hand,  a record that I bought later with my first pay felt a lot more precious, a lot more valuable. I cared for it more. It was because I knew how much work I had put in to be able to get that pay, to be able to afford that record. For a long time in my life, I lived in the realm of the allowance, not knowing that something more valuable existed on the opposite side.

And then, I learned something from Eleanor Roosevelt. She said,“You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, ‘I have lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.’ You must do the thing you think you cannot do.” In our modern memeable culture, we have boiled this down to "do one thing every day that scares you". I learned about it towards the end of college, and ever since then, I have tried to live it, and through it, make up for times in the past where I didn't. I forced myself in the middle of conversations, got into heated arguments, and told girls I liked them. Through many small steps, I have pushed myself to the point of rejection, and after enough times, built up a reservoir of 'antifragility', which is the ability of thrive and prosper during times of chaos and prosperity. A lot of the philosophy that I am drawn to mentions this concept, and that combined with the power of Mrs. Roosevelt helped me break out of comfort and embrace challenge. Living through the concept of anti-fragility has created some beautiful opportunities and connections in my life, and I have come to appreciate the pleasure that comes after a hard day's night.

OK, that covers the context. Since graduating with a Bachelor's of Science in Information Systems, in my career, I created a niche role for myself where I would go into an organization, understand how they operate, and create efficiency so they could operate better, cheaper, faster. Although none of my roles were meant to be that way as they veered more towards traditional salaried BA roles, I would find myself bored after a while. So, I would look elsewhere, for something different, for something to push my edge. This is how I have left every single job in my career, in the name of growth. I suppose I had shunned comfort so much that I pushed away the idea of a relatively easy 9-5 job, something that could offer me financial security at the expense of my mental one.

So, when I moved to Canada, I found myself pursuing the same thing. Except this time, I wanted to go even deeper, shun comfort even harder. I found a job as a server at first, and then, as a floor labourer. Never experiencing hard labour or a typical blue collar job, I wanted to change that. And I did, for a while. I would wake up at six in the morning, put my knees through seven and a half hours of labour work, and then be exhausted by the time I would be home. It was simple work, but hard on the body, and rewarding for the psyche. And then, that too got stale (or maybe too hard...I still am not quite sure). I found myself back working in a startup again, this time implementing easy solutions for our customers. I picked up the tasks really quickly and became an excellent employee. I worked there for close to a year. Towards the end, I slacked off big time, and took advantage of all the free time that I could. I had outgrown my responsibilities, and things came too easily. There was no need for struggle. And I got complacent, and hated it. A few months before I left, when I received the paystub, there was a moment where I wanted nothing to do with it. I knew that I hadn't done anything productive during that time, and the pay was not earned. I was back to being on allowance. And, I needed to change my state of being.

And that is what brings me to the present. I started a new job a month ago, in a role that I had never been in. It is the hardest gig I have done in a long time, and there are times when I struggle to figure out how I will contribute. It is intimidating, scary, and makes me feel like an imposter on most days. There have been days when I find myself looking for another job as a safety net, just in case they figure out how much of an imposter I am before I do.

Then, something clicked. I am in a position where I am being challenged, where I am having to face my shadows and my blind spots and potential failures. And, I have the choice to run away from it (by looking for a safety net), freeze (and have my employer find out how much of an imposter I am) , or I can fully dive in, learn some really cool new technology and make myself useful. The last option is the one that requires the most work, but also the one with the sweetest reward. I know it. I have experienced it. Being great is not an end goal, being great is a process. So, I have embraced the last option, to fully dive in. And to enjoy it, I have to find fun in the mundane, in the hard things. To me, that looks like finding a new programming syntax to learn each day, using which I will be able to solve really interesting problems. And when I do, it will feel earned, validated, and that much sweeter.

The journey of working through discomfort and fear is a really hard one. It can also be long. Most likely, it will be lonely. But, this journey is powerful. It builds integrity, it (re)builds relationship with oneself. And on this journey, anytime a milestone is reached, you will appreciate it, cherish it, and be grateful for it. Through that, you will appreciate yourself, cherish yourself, and be grateful for yourself.

I am on this journey again.

Are you?