Question: how to go about learning something I really want to do, without giving in to negative self-talk that impedes my efforts like a rope tied around my ankles.
So this is a question related to jobs and work, going round and round the hamster wheel, as it were, of a years-old theme of mine that is based in an irrational fear of failure. I say irrational because when the fears are looked at in the cold light of day, they seem to be nothing more than excuses... but the anxieties interfere with any attempts to do more than get the kinds of jobs I have always gotten... jobs where I don't like what I do very much and furthermore, I am not particularly suited for, personality-wise... but I get them because they are widely available and I need an income. What happens is that a pattern develops where I make a "stupid" mistake, managers sense I am insecure about having made it, and things go downhill from there. Eventually I leave and go somewhere else, not on bad terms, but because I am uncomfortable thinking about all my mistakes. I don't honestly know if I make the issue worse than it is, or if my mistakes really are so terrible; what I know is that I do make some, and then my head tells me what a dummy I am, lazy, don't really care, etc. I recognize that it's not good to think that way, but I don't know how to stop doing it. Logically, I believe I make the mistakes because I have undiagnosed inattentive ADD, but it has not been formally assessed. I have not sought formal assessment because although I am aware people are prescribed medications to fix it, I understand it is very difficult to get assessed this way, and furthermore, I am afraid that stimulants would mean I would never sleep again. I want to do something differently, though, rather than continue in this cycle, and since medications aren't a solution I want to pursue, perhaps learning a new skill would be. My primary talents are artistic. I would like to take classes and start to learn skills related to that, preferably in graphic design. The difficulty is that I am uncertain I can succeed - the old fear of failure thing again. I am literally afraid even to try, because some part of me is firmly convinced that I will just end up wasting my time. Please give me your strategies to counteract this thinking, which is extremely unhelpful. I want to get out of this rut.
Thanks. |
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