I’m sure many of us reading this has once experienced a fear of disappointing others, making a mistake, or not being liked. In other words, a fear of judgement, a fear of rejection, or the commonly known phenomenon – fear of failure. But why do so many of us fear failure? I believe it is because we feel a constant pressure to be perfect and a crippling anxiety when we are less than perfect.
Whilst pressures can undoubtedly push us to do more, it is important for us to not lose sight of who we are and recognise that we are not meant to be like everyone else or have everything figured out all of the time. We are supposed to make mistakes, we are supposed to be different, and we are allowed to take longer than how others may expect of us. Whilst I do know that some situations are a lot more complicated and may ought to seek more professional advice, I do believe that many people do have control over the pressures they experience. If you look at it from a different perspective, pressures are just myths made up inside our minds, labels that we put on a situation, ideas that we have learnt from something or someone around us. It is the way that we perceive a situation, based on the overload of judgements around us, that create the pressures that we feel. When we can recognise this and detach the perceived pressure from the reality of a situation, it can cause much less overwhelm. Furthermore, the way we feed our minds dictates the way we perceive ourselves, the world and the situations around us. What media are you consuming, who do you surround yourself with, and what narrative are you creating inside your mind? This is what we do have control over.
It seems that society has set unrealistically high standards that we must achieve in every area of our lives in order to be regarded as ‘happy’ or ‘successful’. From a young age, we are told that we need to know what our passion is by this age, get a well-paid job by this age, get married by that age, and retire by another age. This is what defines happiness or success, they say. Whilst staying on this path set out by society, we are also being fed ideas and expectations of what we should and shouldn’t be and do, from how to look, to how to speak, to how we should spend our time. And if you’re not the same as everyone else or too outside of these standards, you will not fit in and will likely be looked down upon for it. When we also include peer, family, and cultural pressures, it can often be hard to know whether we are living the life we actually want to live, or that someone else or society has designed for us.
On top of this, we have a perceived need to be seen as happy all of the time. Because we only see the highs of other people’s lives, social media has conditioned us to think that the lows must and should not exist. No one posts about their failures or hard times, but believe me that every ‘happy’ or ‘successful’ person has experienced plenty of them. Success is not linear, and failure is in fact an essential part of success. We might look silly when we fail, we might disappoint ourselves and others, and we will likely be judged by others too. But the reality is, you are going to experience failures, rejections, disappointments, and embarrassments whether you like it or not, so if we can get past this fear of rejection and judgement from others, we can get to where we want to be much, much sooner.
I recommend watching the TedTalk here (What I learned from 100 days of rejection), which is a really fun watch, where Jiang talks about his creative method of overcoming the fear of rejection, bringing many lessons and great stories to tell. By simply asking for what you want, you can truly surprise yourself and open up a world of other possibilities!
So, this is your friendly reminder to ignore all the unhealthy pressures and rules that try to dictate how you live your life, believe and do what elevates you to become your best self, and ignore those that don’t. Normalise feeling silly or embarrassed at times, be grateful for your mistakes because they help you grow, celebrate your uniqueness because that’s what makes you, you, and lastly, create a safe space to allow others to do the same too!
Fee Teng Liew 