Anxiety & Fear of Failure Almost Robbed Me of My Dream Career
“When you’ve been conditioned to believe you’ll never achieve anything, stepping up can feel terrifying.”
As someone who lives with anxiety, and is also a survivor of family violence and sexual assault, I guess you could say that stepping out of my comfort zone doesn’t come naturally.
Fear of failure… Years of being told by my dad that I was stupid and should ‘be sent away to live in a girl’s home…’ Those things tend to stick with you…
Yet, even in those lonely, terrifying early years where I spent every day in fear of my dad’s emotional and mental abuse, there was a little voice stirring within my soul, urging me to dream bigger.
‘One day, you’ll use all this pain to help someone else,’ it said. ‘One day, you’ll make sure other people don’t have to feel so alone and hopeless.’
Sitting on my bed and scrawling all the pain and hurt into my diaries, became my lifeline; writing was like a lantern of hope in a blizzard of sadness.
In a way, my dad’s emotional and mental abuse primed me perfectly for what was to become my life calling. But it took me a long, long time to find out what that was. Mostly, because I was too terrified to even ‘try’ at life.
You see, every time I’d get an idea for something I could possibly turn into a career, I’d immediately want to shut it down. I become the world’s greatest expert in making excuses.
‘I’ll probably just fail anyway… And then I will have wasted all my money!’
‘It’s selfish of me to use my savings to invest in business support.’
‘Maybe one day, when my son is older and I’m not a stay at home Mum.’
‘Why would anyone want to pay me to write?’
And you know what was even sadder? Even after writing and publishing my first book in 2017, I still felt this way. That was, until October last year.
QUITTING BEFORE I’D EVEN BEGUN…
Jumping on Instagram one morning in 2018, I saw ‘one of those’ ads.
You know the ones… Some smug person gloating about how they went from zero to six-figures. ‘Sign up for my webinar!’ ‘Live the laptop life!’ ‘The funnels that will make you rich!’
Yawn. I don’t know about you, but nothing turns me off quicker than someone trying to trap me in their funnel with an emotional hook about becoming a millionaire. (We all know how these ads work — as life coach/comedian JP Sears says, once you get in their funnel, you ain’t ever getting out!)
But then I saw something interesting. It was a post from American marketing and PR Strategist, Selena Soo, sharing about the difficulties of being a heart-centred introvert.
The struggle between knowing you have a message that could impact millions, but not wanting to step into the limelight. The internal battle with trying to chase your dreams, while being so shy that you can barely make small talk at parties.
Most people would probably be impressed by the fact that Selena is a 7-figure entrepreneur. But to be honest, I didn’t give a s*** about that. What really stood out to me, was how much Selena had been able to achieve as an introvert.
The fact that she had been brave enough to walk away from her steady full-time job, to begin investing in her own dreams.
And so, inspired by Selena’s story, I decided to take a course in marketing & PR to help me get my message of hope and suicide prevention out to a wider audience, and to finally work toward my dreams of becoming a writing coach for survivors of trauma.
Now, you might be thinking that this is the end of the story… But oh no, my friend. Really, it was just the beginning.
Because, just like every other time I prepared to step up, fear and self-doubt immediately surfaced, whispering in my ear and telling me I should just give up.
WHY, ON EARTH, DO WE SABOTAGE OUR DREAMS?
The truth is, I was scared; scared to take a step forward and scared to invest in myself.
But as I broke into tears that night, thinking about how exhausted I was trying to teach myself everything about running a business, and my dreams for helping more people around the world to defeat the beast that is mental illness, I realised something…
Here I was struggling, knowing deeply that I needed help — and yet I was too afraid to take that first step of reaching out for support. In truth, my fears around taking a risk on myself, weren’t that different from the fears many people experience when dealing with mental health issues.
And so, with the support of my husband and family, I decided to be brave. I chose to believe that I was worth investing in, and to commit to investing every dollar I’d saved, in order to reach more people with my message of hope.
SHIFTING MY CHILDHOOD TRAUMA MINDSET
One of the biggest mantras I had to commit to early on, was to stop ‘hoping’, and to start ‘believing’ in my abilities. (As a child who grew up with an abusive father, let me tell you, this mindset was really hard to unlock).
But I pushed myself to try. Immediately, I swapped my inner thoughts of ‘I really hope I succeed,’ to ‘I know I will succeed.’ For the next 30 days, I made it my mission to spend at least five minutes per day, working on my business.
Interestingly, as soon as I changed my mindset and began to look at everything as a possibility, instead of a chance to fail, I grew stronger in my belief that I was on the right track; that there was something bigger in store for me.
Within a few weeks, I had designed my first course — something I didn’t even realise I had the vision to create! Then I got my first client. Within four weeks, I had made 5x more than I generally would in a month! By the end of the six months, I had made far more than I had invested in the course.
It seemed like magic. But really, it was just life — the Universe, you might say — aligning with the energy I was putting out.
Six months on, I can say that it is truly incredible to see how much my life has transformed from that one decision to ‘step up’ and ‘show up’ for my dreams.
Today, I am finally following my dreams, and living the life I was born to. I’m helping people all over the world, to write and publish their stories of triumph over trauma, with the aim of inspiring others who are still on their journey.
Having people hand select and trust me to help them bring their stories to life — including the most intimate and taboo details of everything from incest and domestic violence, to institutional abuse and mental illness — has been humbling.
Looking back at the Jas who was terrified to invest in her own dreams and skills, just a few short months ago, is bewildering. Imagine how much I would have missed out on if I had simply kept making excuses and staying in my realm of comfort?!
The truth is, if you want more for your life, you will always have to step up. Yes, it’s going to be scary, at times. 100%, you’re going to feel out of your comfort zone, and have times where you question your decision to do so. But you’ll never grow if you don’t.
Listen to that little voice stirring inside your soul; the niggling and loving little nudge that wants to be acknowledged. Fight for your dreams. Because contrary to what you may believe right now, every step toward your dreams is already a sign of success.
The only failure, is the failure to take that first step.
