Fear of Failure, FOMO Dressed as Productivity, and the Feedback That Lands Wrong
On the fear of insignificance, the pattern of justification, and why cooking for someone is one of the most underrated things you can do.
Facing Fears
There are a lot of different rules or guidelines that people give us in regards to building a business, or marketing, or how to behave.
And in all of this, the thing I really resonate with is the fear of failing.
One of my biggest fears is the fear of insignificance. Not necessarily afraid of exposing myself online… but afraid of the failure I would get from posting.
That would look like no views, nobody cares, no one pays attention to me.
When you’re really, really passionate about something and you want people to recognize the work that you’ve been putting in… and it’s all of a sudden not going to show up and turn out the way that you expected it… it can be really daunting to think about what will happen if you do put yourself out there.
And so you end up trying to perfect the way it shows up or comes out, and that just creates a cycle of overthinking and not doing.
To face that fear… ask someone to tell you the thing they hate the most about it.
The Habit
Someone I know has a lot of book knowledge on a variety of subjects… but not truly embodying what it means to know those things.
They help people with nervous system regulation.
And they were smoking a cigarette.
This is a habit someone can get into… making excuses for themselves about why it’s not important for them to follow through on the work.
But they will tell everyone else why it’s necessary for them.
It’s a pattern of justification. Trying to justify why you are right and you know everything… but when other people do it, it is wrong. Justifying your own ways of living and behaving.
Pay It Forward
Cook for someone this week.
The time it actually takes to go out, buy the ingredients, find the ingredients, make the recipe, spend the time cooking… that is totally undervalued and underutilized today. Especially with how easy it is to just pick something up from a fast food place where there isn’t any love put into the preparation.
Either invite someone over… even a stranger, bring a friend along… and cook for the group. Or decide you want to make a dish or dessert or snack and bring someone along to enjoy it with you.
And if you can cook it in front of them, they feel that much more special. It’s authentic.
The time it takes is the point. It’s love.
From the Week
1. The FOMO spiral
I got pretty overwhelmed with my situation and all these different moving parts in my life.
The different events I want to host in Da Nang, what I feel maybe is still not yet accomplished or finished here. But at the same time, having a lot of urges to leave Da Nang and leave early.
It was really fascinating to see within myself… I was getting wrapped up in thinking that there’s still more to do, but in reality there’s actually not that much to do.
There’s the fear of missing out on the lifestyle that I’ve built here, missing out on meeting certain people, not being close to my friends. And then questioning myself… is that really the approach I want to go towards, leaving everything I’ve built?
Sometimes a restart is exactly what is needed to revamp everything.
2. The date
I had a girl over, and I didn’t have any intentions or desires from the start to want to make any moves on her.
This is something I’ve had to teach myself… patience within a relationship.
So instead of making assumptions and jumping the gun quickly, visualizing my life with her or spending time with her before I even know who she is… I actually took the time to just invite her to my home and listen to her and talk to her, just human to human.
I was giving respect to her and myself. Because I know how quickly I can get attached to people if I like them.
I decided to give more space to the situation and see if there’s anything there, instead of trying to force something I may have been craving for a long time.
3. Being overly critical toward my friend
A friend of mine is going through a deep change in his habits. Really doing his best to change his entire health lifestyle… it’s been really amazing to see his change and his commitment to stop smoking.
And I’ve been on this journey for a long time. So when I saw him still scrolling his phone, I was basically putting my own worries and failures from the past onto him.
Out of everything going on in his habit change, I was paying more attention to the things he could still get done more or get better at… instead of recognizing and appreciating and giving him the accomplishment praise that he needs.
I do deeply care about what his growth journey is going to be like. But me being the super optimized performance version of myself, I wasn’t seeing it through his eyes and how far he’s only come.
It actually comes from my mom… I wanted to give her so much feedback that it ended up feeling like criticism.
What I actually wanted to say was: you’ve actually come so far already and I’m super proud of you for doing that.
Timing is super important. And sometimes it’s not even necessary to say anything.
It’s important to actually recognize the wins and the things that we’ve already done, instead of criticizing the things that are still not done yet.
Sam Gute Rogers
Mental Fitness Specialist