Intellectual Wellness: Fear

Whoa, whoa, whoa. 2 posts from me on back to back days? I’ll be honest, I really enjoyed my time away but at the same time I have missed this blog quite a bit. I’m moving this blog into a different direction and offering more insight on my personal opinions of wellness topics and what inspires me. I got to the point where I felt like I was writing for other people and not writing for myself anymore. So I’m trying to remove the idea that this blog is a business and remember that this blog is a reflection of me. I hope future posts convey this much more clearly. Now let’s get into this!

It’s no secret that I love podcasts. They are my favorite thing to listen to when I walk to work or when I am doing random tasks that don’t really require any brain power but need to be done. NPR’s TED Radio Hour is just hands down my favorite podcast right now. I love the topics they discuss, I love the people that the feature, I love the structure of the show, I love every single thing about it. I find myself listening to it and feeling inspired and motivated and learning all the time from it. One podcast that I recently listened to was about fear and failure. Ah yes, the things that seem to cause us to hold back the most in life. I know a thing or two about failure. Actual failure. My first semester of my undergrad I was a marketing major. I was taking a macro economics class and I walked into the final knowing that even if I scored a 100% of the final, I wouldn’t have a shot at even getting a D- in the class. I didn’t just fail this class, I massively failed this class. I landed myself on academic probation, lost my academic scholarship, I found myself completely lost. While I was never a straight A student with a perfect GPA, I was always an honor roll student with strong grades. School was never easy for me but it was never that hard either. I had never failed this horribly, ever. I never retook that class. It still remains on my transcripts. And it always will. It was one of the hardest and best lessons I have every learned. Because through failing, I found my passion – psychology. Which is exactly what I said in my personal statement to graduate schools I applied to. I wanted to address my poor performance in my first semester of my undergrad because that killed my GPA. I wanted graduate schools to know that I was resilient and that even if I did fail (hopefully not as horribly) I would be able to come back stronger than ever.

See what this story of my failure has to do with fear is that we often have a fear of achieving our goals or dreams. We are afraid of failing and of making mistakes. We see failure as the ultimate let down and not a learning opportunity or an opportunity to grow as an individual. We forget that grit and determination can help us remain resilient in tough situations. And that at the end of the day, even if you do fail or make a mistake, you at least tried. You at least tried to do something new or different or something that was outside of your comfort zone. And even in failing, you grew as a person. You pushed yourself. Whether it is at work, at home, in your workout, in school, with friends, family, loved ones – you made an effort to not sit back and take the easy way. And while that is scary, we should never let fear get in the way of achieving a goal.

Unless it is a scary movie, then fear always wins. I hate scary movies.