The Crippling Fear of Making the Wrong Choice

During my epic relaunch party in September 2017, I asked my readers the question, “What is 1 of your biggest fears that holds you back?” The #1 answer had to do with the fear of failure. Making the “wrong” choice. Becoming successful and then dropping the ball. Family suffering because of potential mistakes. Not being the person they need to be or not living up to their full potential. Failing.

Have you ever experienced this fear?

Have you ever doubted your decision making because of the potential risks of choosing “wrong”? Are you afraid to try something new (like pursue that degree or start that business or invest in a new hobby) because it might end up being a big waste of time and money? Do you fear what others will think of you if you mess this up? Are you crippled to make the big decisions in your life because of the overwhelming possibility in your mind that you could make the wrong choice and fail?

I’ve experienced this kind of fear.

Just recently, in fact. I’ve mentioned on the blog before about how I’m a recovering perfectionist (and those of you who struggle with perfectionism I’m sure also know this “fear of failure” all too well); however, what I have not publicly shared is the extent to which this has affected my life. I’ve recently come to the realization and acknowledgement that I suffer from anxiety and depression to some degree.

For so long I blocked such labels for myself from my mind because “how could I have anxiety or depression? Others have it way worse than me. Who am I to be depressed? My life is great and the family I was blessed with is so rare. Whatever is going on with me is just mild and something I can totally overcome on my own with enough willpower.” I thought that because I accomplished so much in my life before with enough hard work and discipline that this, too, was something I could overcome with my own force by myself. And I assumed that my issue must not have been as bad as I thought because compared to the rest of those around me it seemed like I “had it together.” I knew I wasn’t perfect, but I felt like I’d be falsely victimizing myself or blowing it out of proportion to call what I had true “anxiety” or “depression.” So I let myself live in it, alone, for so long.

And I failed. I couldn’t just “try harder” and make my depression and anxiety go away. I could make it better sometimes, but I could never completely vanquish it for good.

I was encouraged to share about these struggles on my blog and I was willing to at first…but then I began to fear “what if I share about my anxiety and depression and it hurts my ability to help others? What if people lose trust in me because they see me as much farther from “perfect” and incapable of sharing any wisdom? What if people stop listening to the words I say here?”

My perfectionism gagged me. I feared that if I vulnerably shared this deepest issue in my life it would be a mistake and I would be judged. But now at the age of 23, soon 24, I’ve realized that this is not something I can get over on my own and I needed to open up to someone like how I so often let others open up to me. I needed to stop allowing myself to only have one sided friendships and begin to give myself permission to ask for help and gain the support I needed from others.

And I felt compelled to authentically share my story here because I know from personal experience how powerful it can be to be able to say “me too”. There is relief that comes in knowing you are not alone. So if I could help someone else out there by being open and honest about this, then it would be worth the “risk.”

I was reading the chapter on Responding to Failure in Jordan Raynor’s book, Called to Create. He shared a story of a time he failed and the speech he gave every time the topic came up. Although true, he said that he worded it in such a way that avoided being completely transparent and vulnerable. “Why does that matter? Because every time I regurgitated the above speech, I missed an opportunity to share the hope I have in Christ…I wish I had placed my identity in who God says I am rather than what other people think of me and my accomplishments.”

This chapter inspired me to be transparent with you and to share that–though I am far from perfect, I make mistakes, and I battle depression and anxiety–I am CONFIDENT that God can and IS still using my work here for good. I believe that God’s strength shows more clearly in my weaknesses, so I will gladly boast in my weakness and have hope that even when I make the “wrong choice” God can still use it to make a difference in the lives of others. This hope gives me peace and the strength to keep going.

One of my deepest desires is to help others and so one of my biggest fears is to be incapable of helping anyone. Without the hope I have in God, that fear would cripple me because I’d put WAY too much pressure on MYSELF to make the right choice every time, to say the right words, to write some crazy awesome blog post to change people’s lives. But I know I can’t do it on my own and if I put that kind of pressure on myself, I’ll go nuts! I know because I’ve been there. Sometimes I forget and begin depending on my own strength and the weight of it brings me down. Sometimes even paralyzes me. But then I remind myself that God is ultimately in control and that He can use anything and anyone, so He can use me. Even in my weakness. Even in my mistakes and failures. So I should not ever fear, but simply give it my best and trust God for the rest.

However, even with this kind of hope and peace, I still have to deal with this broken physical body and my own imperfections. In all honesty, for so long I have beaten myself up for not being able to break out of the irrational overwhelming sadness or the anxious feeling of my heart racing. I’ve been enraged at myself for not being able to push through it. I had a big master plan for my blog after my relaunch in September to keep the momentum going. It was a great plan…but then I was glutened (I have Celiac’s Disease, so gluten damages my body and its ability to absorb nutrients), which I think led to my immune system weakening and I got sick. Twice. All of this triggered my depression. I tried so hard to keep getting my blog tasks done in time…but I failed. My foggy sick brain couldn’t handle it.

My body cried for a break. I even let myself rest–taking a whole week off to not think about my blog. Usually this helps immensely, but this time my sick brain just still couldn’t handle it. I fell into depression. I also became anxious and angry for not getting the simplest things done to keep my blog going strong through October. I beat myself up for it. I felt like I had failed. The feelings of failure led me to doubt myself — “what was I thinking continuing this blog? I can’t do this. I can’t even do the littlest things. I’ve cut down my writing schedule to only 2 blog posts a month and I can barely even do that! This is so unprofessional. People will unfollow me. I’ll ruin all of this and my hard work will have been for nothing. I won’t be able to help anyone; I can hardly help myself lately.” I’m sure all of these thoughts contributed to my inability to write this blog post until now.

Ironically, my fear of failure was keeping me from writing about the topic of fear of failure! I had been so excited to write on this topic, but with all that happened I down-spiraled and used my sickness as an excuse for not writing because “I can’t write anything good enough when my brain is this tired and foggy. It’ll sound like a child and it won’t help anyone”, when I should’ve just started writing.

I was letting negative irrational thoughts hold me back instead of holding onto the truth. You see, every action we take (or lack of action) is driven by a feeling (such as fear) and every feeling we have (like fear) comes from a thought we have.

When we say the reason we’re not moving forward with something we want to do (such as chasing a dream) because we are afraid of making the wrong choice, yes it is true that the emotion of fear can motivate our actions, but it is the thoughts we have that create our emotions. Our “what if” thoughts cause us to fear.

That fear we have — “what if I make the wrong choice? What if I fail?” — like most fears, it has to do with things that haven’t happened yet. Worries. The “what if”s. So why do we worry? Where does the emotion of fear come from?

Originally, the response of fear–heart pumping blood through our bodies more quickly, muscles tensing, senses heightened–were all a healthy part of preparing our bodies for “fight or flight.” This was great when our ancestors came face to face with a lion or other life-threatening dangers; however, now for those of us who live in more advanced societies (and especially for those who live in relatively safe communities) that response of fear is no longer as helpful to us. It’s rarely necessary. However, it’s still wired within us. Someone jumps out to scare us and before our brains have time to process “oh, that’s just my friend being a goober”, our bodies instantly prepare for fight or flight.

So the majority of the time nowadays this fear response does not help us whatsoever. When we’re actually safe, fear does not serve us.

When we fear making the “wrong choice” we really are fearing how we perceive we will feel if we mess up. We fear our own created thoughts and meanings without thinking it all the way through.

So you fear failure. Well, what does “failure” mean to you? What are you really afraid of? Do you think if you fail people will judge you? Do you fear you will let down your family? Do you fear you’ll lose a lot of money? Most likely, whatever it is you fear actually isn’t the end of the world. In most cases, you probably won’t die. So what’s the worst that could happen?

And often times our FEAR OF FEAR is actually causing us more pain than the thing we fear could.

Imagine a child going to get a shot at the doctor’s. The child says she fears shots. Well, it’s not actually the shot she fears, right? It’s her perception and prediction of the pain it will cause her. She fears the possible outcome of pain, but she doesn’t even know if it will actually cause her pain. She cries all the way to the doctor’s office. Kicks and screams. The nurse sneaks the shot and the child doesn’t even notice. She keeps on crying, not able to see past her tears. “Don’t do it!” she cries. “It’s already over,” says her mother. Her anxiety caused her more grief than the pain she feared she’d feel from the shot.

Unfortunately we do the same thing as adults. We worry and fear and end up making ourselves suffer more than if we just faced our fear head on.

But not all of it is completely irrational fears of the unknown. We’ve been hurt before.

We gave that presentation and tripped over our words; our cheeks turned red and the whole thing went downhill from there. That relationship turned out to be the wrong choice and we had our hearts broken. We interviewed for the job and didn’t get it. We told our family our “genius idea” and they shot it down.

But even when things went wrong–how bad were they really? Evaluate it. You’re still living and breathing and reading this blog post, aren’t you? I’d go as far as to boldly say that you’re stronger than you were before, aren’t you? You learned a thing or two. You got some experience under your belt. So what’s the worst that can happen? Really? And is it all that bad?

Now, what’s the BEST that could happen? I challenge you to think even more upon that question–what is the BEST possible outcome of you making this choice or facing this fear?

If after thinking it all the way through you still feel fear, that’s ok. Just take action anyways! Because when you take action, all of those “what if”s and irrational fears get proven wrong. So if after that little mental exercise you still cannot convince your mind and/or body that you are safe and there is no need to fear, just do it anyways. Do it scared. Then evaluate it afterwards to show yourself proof that you LIVED and it wasn’t as bad as you feared it would be. Reflect on the good that came out of it (even if it didn’t turn out to be 100% the best choice you could have made); you can always find the good and lessons to be learned.

And remember. EVERYONE experiences fear. No one is fearless. Those that appear to be fearless are really just those who didn’t let fear keep them from taking action. You can, too. I know you can!

Remember “what’s the BEST that can happen?”

You really only have 2 potential outcomes:

1. You succeed in the way you hoped or

2. You have a learning experience that puts you one big step closer towards succeeding.

WIN WIN!

Don’t let the fear of making the “wrong choice” cripple you from trying something new or chasing your dreams.