I love talk radio. Since I got my car, it’s the only thing I listen to during my drive in to work and most times it’s what’s playing any other time I’m listening to the radio. I can’t help it. It presents the news in a completely biased manner but one that actively engages it’s audience in a way television can never match. Sure I can @torontostar or hope you bump into me downtown, but you get to filter it. With talk radio, I can call you and speak to you unfiltered. I can put you on the spot, turn your ideas upside down and just rail against you for not knowing your facts. I can agree with you and make fun of the last caller. I can get involved. I could – but I don’t. The main reason being I don’t is because I don’t fully understand the ins and outs of what’s being discussed. It’s hard to make a comment when the first time you hear about something is while driving. I’m not really confident enough to do that. Much like I wasn’t confident enough in my own skills as a programmer and designer a few years ago.
Back then I was just starting out and just couldn’t bring myself to say “I’m a programmer, you don’t know what you’re talking about”, even if I felt that way. I couldn’t correct a guy who talked about “href” tags or someone who called a computer a “CPU”. And I got to thinking. Why. Why was I, who KNEW my stuff (not to sound like a complete ass) not nearly as confident as the other guy who clearly didn’t? Why did I not call him out when he blatantly BS’d his way through explanations? Why couldn’t I just be more confident? And I realized it stemmed from two fundamental truths.
- He was always told that he could do anything he wanted
- I was afraid of failure
One of those I obviously couldn’t do anything about, but I could try and fix the other.
The only thing we have to fear is fear itself
In order to fix this fear of failure I had to try and figure out why I was afraid. The obvious “because you’ll fail” wouldn’t cut it this time, so I had to delve deeper than that. I had to figure out why exactly failure was such a bad thing. After all everyone talks about how you only learn if you make mistakes etc. etc. blah blah, so clearly making mistakes and failing is a good thing. I began to look back at previous times I had failed. I looked at everything, from falling down stairs (walking fail?) to not being able to deliver a project on time to formatting my hard-drive. The only thing these things had in common was that I had failed. That and they caught me off guard.
Wait what? That last bit seems pretty significant.
I looked at more times I failed and noticed the recurring trait. I never thought I would fail, I never even considered it and when it happened I was caught off guard. I didn’t know how to respond and it seemed like every failure inevitably ended with me doubting myself a little more. And now, it had gotten to the point where the apprehension about failing was far more intimidating than actually succeeding.
So I made a list. A list of all the things I could do to not be caught of guard. It was a very short list. It basically involved either being psychic or making another list of all possible points of failure. Clearly neither would be happening. So I decided to make a list of the most obvious things I could fail at for a task. I cut out anything I wouldn’t have any control over, like “friend moves away, has borrowed hard-drive, now you have no hard-drive” and left the generalized stuff on. And you know what? It didn’t help one bit. I still wasn’t confident, I still was afraid to speak my mind about anything.
Knowing the failures didn’t help. In fact just knowing them made them all seem so much worse. Gradually however, I started coming up with contingency plans for each point of failure. At first they started as reasons for why they couldn’t be counted as “real” failures. They weren’t excuses, but rather ways to deal with something if that particular failure came about. And the suddenly, once I had a contingency plan for a failure, there was no reason to worry about it. Sure it could happen, but so what? I had a back-up plan. And a back-up plan of my back-up plan was in the works. A failure just wasn’t that daunting anymore.
Sure a client could say “I’m not paying you for that.”, but then I could say “Well why don’t we meet and discuss your reservations about paying and see if we can come up with something where both of us are happy.” I could also say “Screw you buddy, see you in small claims.” It didn’t matter WHAT I said, it just mattered that I had various plans in case I failed. And that gave me a sense of confidence that I’ve never had before.
And the confidence brought something else that I hadn’t counted on. Success. I hadn’t suddenly gotten better at anything, but I wasn’t so afraid of failing and people responded to it. I spoke my mind at meetings and offered my input. Sometimes I was right and sometimes someone said I was wrong. It didn’t matter because my backup plan for saying something wrong was simple “Ask why.” And people suddenly realize you’re not just like everyone else. You want to know more, you’re willing to offer ideas and have them killed, you just want to know why.
And just like that, I was suddenly confident in my own abilities. Not just as a developer or a designer, but as a guitarist, as a gamer, as a person. I knew what I could and could not do, and I knew how to deal with both.
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I realized this is sort of a random shift away from coding and stuff, but as a fellow blogger once pointed out to me. It’s my goddam blog.
Fear is probably most major way in which we limit themselves. It’s not only fear of failure – it is also fear of looking silly, fear of being impolite, fear of loosing someone’s approval…
I think most of this is when we leave how we define ourselves to others.
In blogging this is easily experienced as “what if my readers don’t like this”. And best counter (as for me) is – “I want to have readers that like this rather then censor myself for readers who don’t”.
@Rarst
You’re absolutely right. Too often we worry about what other people will think about us – so instead of doing something that will make us happy, we force ourselves into these situations where we try and alter ourselves for others.
Nice article. Scared me just reading it.
And, I realized two things: 1) how very far I’ve come over the years: from a quiet mouse in the corner to an outspoken individual; 2) how terrified I still am when it comes to the things that matter most to me. Those, I keep hidden away in that corner.
It so strange how it takes us so long to be comfortable with the things we know the most about. I still find it hard to talk to other IT people about things, even if I know what I’m talking about. Working where I do, however, is forcing it to happen more and more, which is pushing me out of my comfort zone. I think that’s a good thing though.