I have always been a dreamer. From a very young age, I had so many dreams and ambitions that this often led to the formation of some pretty major expectations. I was so desperate to succeed and to be something special that I became terrified of failure, terrified of shortcomings and imperfections, terrified of not being good enough. Growing up, I dreamed of being a writer. I can’t really pinpoint the first moment I picked up a pen, but I knew from the moment I did, it was what I was meant to do for the rest of my life. For a really long time writing was my most major source of happiness, one of the only things I truly enjoyed doing, but as I grew up this became less and less true. The truth is, I had such high expectations of myself, it translated into me being hyper critical of everything I would write.
Every piece I wrote, I would scrutinize to the point where I hated it, to the point where I convinced myself maybe I wasn’t as good at writing as I once thought. Soon I began to ask myself questions like, “Why am I even trying?” I was flooded with self-doubt and it stopped me from being comfortable with being creative.
Maybe sometimes my sentences will be better formulated than others and some of my ideas may miss the mark but I shouldn’t let my own expectations prevent me from trying in the first place.
No one else was putting this pressure on me. I was lucky in the sense that I didn’t have strict parents that critiqued everything I did. Honestly, I was surrounded by encouragement and yet, every time I picked up a pen I choked. I didn’t even attempt to write unless it was stipulated for an assignment or a grade because I had convinced myself of my own mediocrity. I had convinced myself that my work would just be an evidenced reminder that I had missed the mark. Scared of the possibility of failure, I completely turned my back on a dream I had my entire life.
Until one day I began to remind myself why writing made me so happy in the first place. The thing is, I had become so caught up in idealisms of perfection and so fuelled by self-doubt that I forgot that nothing in life truly is perfect. Maybe sometimes my sentences will be better formulated than others and some of my ideas may miss the mark but I shouldn’t let my own expectations prevent me from trying in the first place. I might not be the best writer in the world, but how will I ever get better if I never let myself learn? The only thing standing in the way of my happiness was myself and that wasn’t okay with me anymore.
As the famous saying goes,
So maybe I haven’t figured out the top secret formula to completely annihilating self-doubt and accepting creative confidence, and maybe I never will, but I have learned that as cliche as it may sound, what does matter is putting your best foot forward and that the fear I harboured was the only impediment that prevented me from pursuing my dreams. So yes, I am still terribly afraid of failure and I probably will be for the rest of my life. However, I have learned that the only true failure is giving up.
