Tuesday, August 17, 2010

"All this pressure is eating me up inside
And I feel like I'm being buried alive again
All this pressure is tearing me up inside
And the fear of failing is on my mind again
The anxiety is building up inside
And the thought of losing is running strong again." - Rains "Pressure"

I am afraid of very few things:  Bees, Wasps, Big Ugly Beetles and Failure.

I have grown accustomed to the concept that Failure is not an option for me and it actually scares me to think I might fail at something.  This applies to my work environment, my personal life, and even to me personally. 

Born a class over-achiever, my first taste of failure came in sixth grade when I failed a geography test (never mind that by gender alone I'm not supposed to be able to read a map!).  What a devastating thing to go through.  Honor roll student can't find Japan on a map (don't ask I probably still can't find it).  But the idea of disappointing my parents, bringing home something less than a perfect score was horrifying.

Flash forward to university.  Honor roll student that wasn't ready to go to university, succumbs to pressure to go be brilliant.  When I withdrew a semester and a half later, I viewed it as a failure, disappointing my parents, letting myself down.  I cried for an entire night contemplating the decision and when I finally made it, went down to the Dean's office signed the papers and exhaled, I actually felt better. 

What I realized in that small moment was that I wasn't really living life for me, instead I was living life to please others.  I wasn't really failing me, I had lived in this belief that I was failing me and others when in fact, the pressure to be something that I didn't want to be was crushing to the point I couldn't breathe and until I "chose" to do something that I wanted to do and started living life on my own terms, could I truly exhale.

I still fight the fear of failure.  I have a need to be the very best at everything that I do.  It's hard for me when I face a situation at work where someone doesn't see things my way, or insists on micromanaging me.  The idea that when I don't meet someone else's expectations I somehow have failed - when in fact the problem may not even be me at all.

I wonder sometimes if my desire to be pleasing sometimes leads to this fear of failing?  But then I would be dissatisfied if I did less than my very best just to please someone else.

A friend once explained to me about spheres of influence and spheres of control.  Spheres of influence are those areas that you are not directly in control of, but have powers and abilities to affect change.  Spheres of control are those things you have direct control over.  If there is something that occurs anywhere else between these two spheres, my job is to just smile until someone tells me otherwise.

I feel like I've been smiling alot lately.

Circuit Tonight!