We carry many wounds with us throughout our life. These wounds shape who we are, how we approach life and how we react to difficult situations. Probably the most common is the fear that we will be called out as a fake or a fraud. This fear makes us jump through all kinds of hoops trying to hide our real self because we don’t think we are good enough. So, we go through life avoiding difficult situations where we fear we might be exposed.
We can’t take any risk because we might be thought of as a failure. We can’t make any changes because people might question or criticize us. We have to “blend in” to fit in.
A quote from Strauss Zelnick on the Farnam Street blog this week addressed this concept:
“It’s tempting to criticize others, especially when someone else actually did do something wrong. It’s also unproductive and unkind. If someone repeatedly makes mistakes, he or she is in the wrong job. But firing someone won’t solve an immediate problem – and sometimes making mistakes is a necessary adjunct to trying new things: without the freedom to fail, many people won’t take an appropriate risk.”
This makes perfect sense in the business world where an understanding boss can allow his employees to flourish under great leadership. What about farmers and ranchers who are normally self-employed and don’t have that great boss as a coach? Well, this is where you have to do some work on yourself.
I’m not talking about therapy but about self-awareness. We need to see what is holding us back. All of us have self-sabotaging behaviors. What is yours? How does it affect you? Have you found a way to manage it?
Most of all, we need to get over this stigmatism that failure is a bad thing. Failure does not define us. We need to give ourselves the freedom to try new things and the freedom to fail.