The fear of failure has haunted me for as long as I can remember. From fear of academic failure to fear of failing in the real world, I was crippled so much by this looming threat of doing badly that I would rather not try than try and fail. It was better for me to wonder what could have happened then be left disappointed and angry at myself for not doing better. Not trying was my way of protecting my sanity. I realized that after years of guarding myself from the weight of failure that I never managed to learn how to handle it. This all changed when my worst nightmare came to life: I failed my driving test. Failure is a fierce beast to face head on when you haven’t experienced much personal failure.
Failing my driving test was the worst possible thing that could’ve happened to me; I was a nervous driver, plagued with anxiety and fear of crashing my older brother’s car. I remember repeatedly telling my sister that if I failed my driving test that I didn’t think I could possibly ever drive again . It had taken me almost a month to find the confidence to practice driving again after failing the test. I was embarrassed, but mostly angry at myself for making such a small mistake. I found myself replaying the event over and over again and asking myself, how could you have not turned left on the advance green light? The truth was that my lack of confidence in my driving capabilities and my fear of failure were my downfalls. I didn’t trust my own judgments and my thoughts of failing were spiralling out of control.
Strangely enough, I remember feeling relieved after finding out that I had failed. I felt at that moment there was nothing else that could go wrong. My worst nightmare had come to life, and I lived to tell it. Failure wasn’t the scary monster that I had thought it was. In the end, it didn’t matter whether I failed or not. What mattered most was that getting my licence was something that I was willing to work for, no matter how long it took I knew it was a commitment I was willing to make. I finally got my licence a couple of months after my initial try. And this time around I was confident in my skills; I had already failed once, and doing it again didn’t seem to hurt as much.
The lesson in all of this is take your failures and let them be the driving force to achieve your dreams. You shouldn’t let one obstacle set you back and erase your hard work. Let your failure be a reminder of what you have overcome and strived for. Through this experience I have learned to take more risks and set my fears aside, and truly work hard for the things that I wanted most in this life. I was no longer shackled by my fear of failure and left perpetually wondering if I could have done it after all.