Kay will return on October 5th, so today we revisit her post from last September on one of the greatest fears a writer can have.
Fear of Failure
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Babe Ruth played professional baseball for 22 years (1914-1935) and is considered one of the greatest players who ever lived. He had almost 3,000 hits in his career, averaging more than one hit per game. For many years, he held the record for the number of home runs hit during a single season (60 in 1927). His total number of home runs over his professional career was 714, a record which stood until 1974.
But there’s another statistic you may not have known: Babe Ruth struck out 1,330 times. Apparently, he never let the fear of failure keep him from playing the game.
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Fear is part of being human. It goes along with the DNA, and it can be healthy because it instills the instinct for survival we all need. But fears can be unhealthy if we give in to them and become more cautious than we need to be.
Once we let our fears control us, things can get out of hand. A phobia is defined as an irrational fear of something that causes anxiety when a person is exposed to that particular thing.
We all know about fear of heights (acrophobia) and fear of spiders (arachnophobia), but when I searched around for a complete list, I found more than one hundred things on healthline.com to be afraid of! Here are a few I found interesting.
Fear of flowers (anthophobia) – Better not go for a walk in my neighborhood.
Fear of numbers (arithmophobia) – I have a friend who insists she “can’t do numbers”
Fear of books (bibliophobia) – Oh no!
Fear of failure (atychiphobia) – Ah, now here’s one we can relate to.
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Failure is something we all experience, but I suspect the fear of failure is more acute in disciplines that require creativity than in other areas. The very word “create” implies something new, and that means it may not work.
I’ve read research that shows high achievers are very likely to experience fear of failure. (I imagine some of us here at TKZ fall into this category.) Having achieved success in their professional lives, these folks see anything less than a fabulous accomplishment as inadequacy.
Many high achievers will work hard to avoid that stigma, but others would rather drop out of the race than risk what they perceive as failure.
So how do authors stay in the game and handle that scary thought that they won’t be able to write another book as good as the last one? There are ways to minimize those concerns. According to an article on betterhealth.vic.gov.au, the same things that enhance creativity can be used to fight the fear of failure.
“There are several ways you can try to fight your fears.… Simple changes, like exercising regularly, can reduce your stress levels. So can eating healthy meals, getting enough sleep, and reducing or avoiding stimulants like caffeine and alcohol.”
And don’t forget the Babe. You can’t hit a home run if you don’t step up to the plate.
So TKZers: Do you experience a fear of failure in your writing? How do you fight it?
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The saga continues with Knights in Manhattan,the second novel in the Reen & Joanie Detective Agency middle grade mystery series.
- Joanie is afraid of flying.
- Reen is afraid she might not catch the thieves.
- Mrs. Toussaint isn’t afraid of anything.
Join the fun with the R&J Detective Agency as they track down nefarious crooks in Manhattan. New York will never be the same.
$1.99 on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Apple Books, and Google Play
I saw a sign in the background of a TV show last week with a sentiment that slammed into me: Fear kills more dreams than failure.
While my parents were very supportive, saying if I failed at something, the worst that would happen is that I’d be exactly where I was, a comment that I’ve come to believe has defined my life was something else.
I came home from school waving a paper and told my dad, “I got the second highest grade in the class!” Calculus final, and boy, I earned that grade.
“Why didn’t you get the highest?” He was joking, I know that now, but at the time, it crushed me. I mean, if I couldn’t be the best, why bother?
I graduated in the top one percent of my class of around a thousand, but I wasn’t the best. I tested out of three semesters of college chemistry, but couldn’t seem to find my groove when I got into the classroom. My journalism and English teachers told me I had what it took for success as a writer or journalist, but I got married and did nothing for a lot of years. I don’t know how I had the courage to write a book, except that it was in my head, and when it was bought by the first editor I sent it to, I thought I had finally found my passion. But the book wasn’t exactly a bestseller, not even close. By the time it was published, I had written two more, but they were rejected. So, if I couldn’t be the best, why try?
Fear of failure. Because it isn’t true that the worst would be just sitting where you were. The worst would be the soul-crushing experience of being rejected, of having to admit to the dozens of people who asked that, no, I didn’t have another book coming out.
I still write, but that demon, fear, keeps me from doing anything with it. Babe Ruth and Michael Jordan and Albert Einstein and thousands of other successful people didn’t let fear, or failures, stop them. They just did what they loved. I’m trying to get into the mindset of happily firing off books to be published while churning out more and not caring if they’re the best. If I’m the best. My mind knows that I don’t have to be the best to succeed. I just have to do the work.
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Fear of failure and it’s accessory perfectionism can definitely be a problem. I’m still learning to deal with it but two things have begun to help:
1) as I age I recognize time is running out so which would I rather have? DONE creative projects with the potential to be imperfect or no project ever finished or published?
2) For writers who have fear of failure, one thing that can help is to write a project WITH someone–by it’s very necessity you can’t cave to your own fears because you have someone else you have to consider–“it’s not all about you” as the saying goes.
Also, to help fight the fear of failure we need to remember that we each bring our own unique spin or angle on the fiction we write. I find that to be an uplifting reason to stay in the game.
I write first and foremost for ME, and I don’t let myself fail myself.
Mrs. Toussaint isn’t afraid of anything. That’s me, sometimes to my detriment. When God was handing out confidence, somehow I got a double dose. 😵💫 When I was a kid, you didn’t even have to double dare me, let alone double dog dare me to do something. Climb to the top of the tree—I was there before anyone else. Try out for cheerleading—done, even though I had absolutely no rhythm and was stiff as an iron pipe. Was quickly dismissed. The next year I tried again with the same results.
Did it hurt when I failed or received a received a rejection for one of my stories ? You bet, but it wasn’t a rejection of me. I wallowed in my misery for a day and then put on my big girl shoes and sent it out again.
It didn’t help that my parents told me I could do anything I wanted to if I worked hard enough. I found that wasn’t true but it didn’t stop me from trying. I wish I could give some of my confidence to those who don’t have as much.
Kay, Mrs. Toussaint is a great role model! Looking forward to your return!
The writer who shows up, does the work, and writes to the best of their ability is a success even if they never hit a bestseller list.
My mentor Dennis Foley says: “You can’t fail at writing unless you give up.”