It’s the middle of September in 2015 and I walk into a dimly lit room called the “Little Theater” to audition for “Heathers: the Musical.” Worrisome thoughts rapidly run back and forth in my head faster than I have the ability to process, and my heart is beating at an abnormally increased rate.
When I enter, I see a large amount of actors seated and ready to audition for any role they can lay their hands on. I hesitantly take a seat near the end of a row, and try to take it all in. As my head flurries with anxiety, one major thought fills my mind:
“What if I mess up?”
It seems like in our culture today, we are focused on doing things perfectly. We are obsessed with the concept of doing things the right way, and doing them well. Even if you're not a perfectionist, there's still something deeply ingrained within us that becomes sad or angry when we fail at things.
This phenomenon leads to a nasty cycle: we are obsessed with perfection so we fear failure. We fear failure so we avoid taking risks. We avoid taking risks, and we become stagnant. We stick to the things that we know we already do well.
Sure, ideas like "it doesn't matter how you do as long as you try your hardest!" or "it's just about having fun!" have been drilled into our collective mind sets through Disney movies and quirky 80's comedies. But does anybody truly act that way?
As humans, we're insanely competitive by nature. In nearly every single thing that we do, we want to be the ones on top. We can wax poetic all day about how losing and messing up isn't truly a big deal, but we don't truly act that way with our actions.
This mindset can be found in both my mind and in so many of the people that I know. Our fear of not being good has become so deeply ingrained in us that we immediately reject things on certain principles. If something seems new or scary or like we might be poor at it, our minds immediately try to flee from the situation.
When it comes to taking an unfamiliar class, learning a new instrument or experiencing something out of our comfort zone, we refuse to participate because we fear that we're going to mess it up. When we come in with the attitude that we're going to mess it up, we're far more likely to fail because of our lack of self-confidence.
As a result, our own fear of failure becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy.
That's why it is so important to not only understand but to believe in the following statements: It is OK to make mistakes. It’s OK to fail miserably, and it’s OK to be bad at certain things.
So many important things in our lives can’t exist without a ton of failing. A new guitar player will barely be able to play a single chord. A kid who is terrible at reading might flail through his first literature class. However, all of these things can be improved upon. It’s our mistakes that lead us to become better and more skilled.
In the moments when we do try new things and we end up failing miserably, the consequences are rarely as dire as we attempt to convince ourselves they will be. Failure is a natural part of the human experience, and it should never stop you from trying something new and uncomfortable.
Bringing things back to "Heathers: the Musical," the audition turned out far better than I anticipated. Getting involved and making the audition was one of the best choices I’ve made so far in my college career. However, my fear of failure almost led me to not audition at all.
As such, it is in moments like those, when you are nervous and anxious and feeling like you will screw up everything: the truth is, you might. And that’s OK. You also might end up being very good at things that you thought you weren’t.
There is only one way to find out.
