Why are We Afraid of Making Mistakes?
English

Why are We Afraid of Making Mistakes?

by

business
psychology

If you entered here, apart from wanting to help a fellow language learner, you may be wondering if I actually have an answer to that question. Oh dear, I wish. And I am here to bring more questions than answers, so read at your will.

I've always been top of the class. My school wasn't famous, nor that difficult. It was enough to get me into the university I wanted, but it wasn't an actual challenge. And I knew that. I knew that once I went to college things would change. But I guess I was not prepared.

Today I had the chance to listen to an amazing Brazilian entrepreneur make the following metaphor about resilience: when we were in high school, we had a 3/10 challenge, but our capacity was a 2. That's why we found it hard. In college, we have a 5 challenge, but we just reached 3. That's why we struggle. And challenge after challenge, we build ourselves up and enhance this confort zone.

But what happens when we are scared? When we have such great expectations of ourselves that we limit our growth with fear? We do exactly that, we limit ourselves. We become insecure. When we don't see progress overnight and think we're stupid, or incapable.

Another thing the man said was regarding gender. That men are way more easily out of their confort zone than women. That they just go for it, while we, women, know we will receive a ton more of backlash if we fail. And that made me question a lot who am I as a woman. I say "risk yourself" to other girls while I maintain myself still. While I had to wonder for 40 minutes if the question I wanted to make to this guy was going to be seen as stupid or not. I have countless questions I wanted to make to countless amazing people that I didn't do because of insecurity.

I remember another time, two months ago, that this guy was saying "come on, don't be shy, entrepreneurs aren't like that". And I know he was saying that to me. I was the only person with the camera on who hadn't made a question. And guess what? From that day forward I started to question myself. Question if I actually am the "entrepreneur persona". If that even is for me. Because if I can't have the guts of making a question to someone miles away from me through a Zoom call, how the fuck will I be a leader?

And the answer to this questions is: I don't know. But if I don't try, that won't change.

So this is a promise, from me to you, that, from this day on, I will ignore that stupid little voice in the back of my mind that says that "people will think you're stupid". Let them. Let them think and let me live my life the way I want. A little more confident each day, without fear of making mistakes.

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