Why is the fear of a hypothetical interaction with a hypothetical person that much greater than my fear of seeing my dreams slip away into the abyss, all because I couldn’t get past the idea of making a few mistakes? Realistically, I know that’s how everyone gets better- try new things, make mistakes, and learn from them. So what would make me any different? I’m not.
Social anxiety is one tough (insert expletive of your choice here). My particular anxiety does not effect going grocery shopping, going on vacation, driving, seeing new places, etc.
I think that’s because to me, these situations (should something go wrong), don’t feel like a personal reflection of me. I can’t however, seem to get past the thought of making a mistake when it comes to one of my biggest dreams in life, being a full time professional videographer and photographer.
I went to school and received a bachelors in a videography/photography related field. I got my first job related to that not even a year later, and worked with that company for around 5 years, getting a promotion half way through. This sounds impressive, but it was in this new space (out in the real world as they call it), that I started to feel like I hadn’t actually learned anything and that I was just overall- inadequate. It was this feeling of inadequacy, which began to eat away at me.
I continued to make the content for my company, but lacked the motivation to learn new skills and better my work for myself. Fast forward 6 years and I still feel like I have the same knowledge as when I graduated college. In the past 6 years, I feel like I have wasted my own time. I am so afraid to make a mistake or look like a fool, that it’s like I won’t let myself succeed.
These days everything feels like a loop, I am back at home, at 28 years old, with no job, and no real friends. I promise myself before I go to bed, “we will get our life together tomorrow”, but when the morning comes, I am too afraid to try because another mistakes means more time wasted. The joke at the end of the day is: I waste more time worrying about wasting time, than I do actually just trying to do something- anything to get myself that little bit further.
All this being said, I will overcome this- I have to. No human being deserves to stay stuck on this wheel of nothingness and fear.
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