Fear of Failure in High Achievers
Did you grow up as a “gifted kid,” someone who seemed to pick up new skills quickly and excel with ease? Do you find it difficult to start a new hobby, job, or expand into a new area of life because you feel pressure to be perfect at it immediately? Trial and error is a normal part of learning and growth. If fear of failure stops you from trying new things, there may be deeper anxiety patterns influencing your thinking.
It is good to set goals for yourself and have high standards for your quality of life. However, when perfection becomes the only acceptable outcome, it can prevent you from enjoying the process of learning and exploring new experiences.
Catastrophizing, Overpreparing for the Future, & Anxiety
When the majority of your positive reinforcement in childhood came from academic or other quantifiable achievements, it can become difficult in adulthood to be satisfied with successes. When someone begins to believe they must succeed at everything on the first try, everyday challenges can start to feel overwhelming.
Common symptoms associated with anxiety include:
Catastrophizing: assuming the worst possible outcome, even when it is very unlikely.
Overpreparing for the future: inability to be fully present in the moment and experience things without judgment or discomfort because of constantly preparing for possible negative outcomes.
Excessive worry, muscle tension, sleep disturbances, and feeling frozen: when you find yourself mentally blocked from allowing yourself to try a new activity or even speak about it, spend more of your time worrying than actually looking at what is in front of you, or experience physical strain, tension, and inability to relax enough to sleep, these are all symptoms indicative of a larger anxiety problem.
These behaviours often developed earlier in life as ways to feel safe or prepared. Though this behaviour was adaptive in childhood, as you get older, the longer such behaviours persist, the more likely they are to morph into maladaptive behaviours that hinder you more than they help.
How CBT therapy Can Help
Thoughts and behaviours often reinforce each other without us realizing it. It is easy to get stuck in a cycle of constantly fearing for the future while neglecting the present moment when one is unaware of the roots of these thought patterns, how they once served a younger version of themselves, and how replacing said thoughts and behaviors with new ones may be more beneficial in adulthood.
CBT therapy, or Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, is one of the most effective treatments for anxiety disorders and anxiety related traits. CBT helps people become aware of their automatic thoughts, such as automatic negative thoughts that lead to fear of failure, catastrophizing, etc., and cause avoidance of new possibilities.
The first step in maintaining a more healthy frame of mind is awareness. A trained CBT therapist can help you become more aware of your automatic thoughts, discuss their childhood roots, and create therapy goals for more realistic & healthy behaviours to replace the anxious one’s with.
You can Learn to be Comfortable with Setbacks
When fear of failure keeps you from trying new things, life can start to feel smaller. When avoiding mistakes becomes more important than learning, it may be time to rethink how you approach growth. CBT therapy can help you acknowledge without judgment your automatic negative thoughts surrounding failure and learn to try new things without feeling shame for not being perfect at them right away.
At Healing Voices Psychotherapy, we offer CBT therapy in Barrie, Bradford, Collingwood, Newmarket, and across Ontario for individuals struggling with anxiety, perfectionism, and fear of failure. Book a free 15-minute consultation today to learn how CBT therapy can help you rebuild self-esteem, free yourself from negative judgment, and be more present in daily life.
