Podchaser Logo
Home
Episode 3 - Overcoming the fear of making mistakes (Pt.1)

Episode 3 - Overcoming the fear of making mistakes (Pt.1)

Released Monday, 8th April 2024
Good episode? Give it some love!
Episode 3 - Overcoming the fear of making mistakes (Pt.1)

Episode 3 - Overcoming the fear of making mistakes (Pt.1)

Episode 3 - Overcoming the fear of making mistakes (Pt.1)

Episode 3 - Overcoming the fear of making mistakes (Pt.1)

Monday, 8th April 2024
Good episode? Give it some love!
Rate Episode

Episode Transcript

Transcripts are displayed as originally observed. Some content, including advertisements may have changed.

Use Ctrl + F to search

0:02

Welcome to today's episodes. And

0:04

we are going to dive into

0:07

the fear of failure and the fear

0:09

of embracing mistakes.

0:11

Now let's start by saying

0:14

that the fear of failing,

0:17

the fear of making mistakes, their learned

0:19

behaviors. As humans,

0:22

we are only born with the fear

0:24

of falling down and the fear of

0:27

loud noises. Every other

0:29

fear that we've experienced come from something

0:31

that you have learned typically

0:33

in your childhood and this will define

0:36

what you believe today and it will

0:38

impact how you feel

0:40

today. Now, when you look at

0:42

society. There are consequences

0:44

to making mistakes, especially at work,

0:47

right? So consequences in terms of your work,

0:49

in terms of your reputation,, so

0:52

we're not going to pretend like

0:54

society doesn't judge and punish.

0:57

Making mistakes does bear

0:59

consequences, right? But.

1:03

I've worked with thousands of leaders

1:05

and the fear of failure can really

1:07

paralyze even the most ambitious people.

1:10

It's a common misconception

1:13

that mistakes are setbacks rather

1:15

than an opportunity for growth. And I, and you

1:18

know, I find that people find that difficult

1:20

to believe because they don't know how

1:22

to transform a mistake into an opportunity.

1:25

But When you are

1:27

scared of making decisions, when you're scared

1:29

of being creative, when you're scared of taking risks,

1:33

I mean, these are essential components

1:35

for thriving personal life, for

1:37

thriving career, and

1:39

for thriving business, right? I remember

1:41

this very, very, very, very distinctly.

1:44

I used to have a physical reaction, when

1:47

I realized that I made a mistake. And

1:49

You may have learned from childhood that

1:51

making a mistake is bad. I

1:53

certainly did. when we made

1:56

mistakes in my house, as a

1:58

kid, we, we had consequences

2:00

and very often it involved

2:02

a belt So of course you

2:04

will be scared to make

2:06

mistakes when you're an adult. All this to say

2:09

that I do understand that it

2:11

is, something that is ingrained

2:14

in your mindset and in your beliefs.

2:16

but I'm here to tell you

2:18

that embracing

2:20

mistakes can radically change

2:22

not only your personal growth in your personal

2:25

life. but it also,

2:28

will, affect your capacity to

2:30

innovate and your capacity to grow inside

2:32

of your organization. the truth

2:34

is that when you work in a culture

2:37

where people are afraid, they're afraid of

2:39

sharing their opinion. They're afraid of speaking

2:42

up,, they're, that really creates,

2:45

a culture of stagnation.

2:47

People miss out on opportunities

2:50

and potentially on providing

2:52

groundbreaking ideas that will make a difference

2:54

inside the organization. And this is

2:56

proven, right? Big organizations like

2:59

McKinsey and Gallup, they've all done

3:01

research around this topic. And

3:03

they do say companies

3:05

where people are afraid, they

3:07

don't foster innovation. They

3:10

don't grow. they, their profits

3:12

are capped, right? So you

3:15

can't necessarily change the culture

3:17

of your organization yet, but

3:19

you can change how you feel about

3:22

making mistakes and how you

3:24

treat your team when they make a

3:26

mistake. So here are some things that

3:28

I'm going to talk to you about that will help

3:30

you identify. How

3:33

you behave when a mistake happens

3:35

and will potentially help you shift your mindset

3:37

about failure. When you make

3:39

a mistake, it will trigger

3:42

a stress response in you and

3:44

this will make you feel unsafe.

3:47

Unless you have done some intentional

3:49

work on your mind, if

3:52

you've done mindset work, you're

3:54

likely to go into one

3:57

or more of these four

3:59

typical stress responses.

4:02

So your job here is to identify,

4:04

and I'm going to share them with you in a minute, I

4:07

want you to identify which one

4:09

of these you go into, because

4:11

the minute you identify what's going

4:14

on, you have the power to change

4:16

it. And the issue

4:19

here is that when you're, when

4:21

you don't identify them, what happens

4:23

is that the emotion runs you instead

4:25

of you running the emotion,

4:28

instead of you, you,

4:30

proactively leading,

4:32

you're reacting to your emotion.

4:35

Alright, so here are the four types

4:38

of responses. they

4:40

are fight, flight, freeze,

4:43

and fawn. And I'm gonna give you examples

4:45

for each of them. Again,

4:47

what I want you to do is to listen and to

4:49

see how do you behave? How do

4:51

you react? Now, One other thing

4:53

that is really important that I me mention at

4:55

this point is that when you

4:58

have a reaction,

5:00

when you have an emotional reaction,

5:02

what will happen is at work you'll

5:04

be, you'll be fine. You, you're not gonna,

5:07

you know, be rude to the people at work. But

5:10

then what happens that you go home and

5:12

you will lash out on your spouse,

5:14

on your children, on your loved ones. Because

5:17

that's how you'll empty up the stress

5:20

response that is all over your body.

5:22

And this is what creates,

5:25

um, tension in your

5:27

personal relationships that are linked to

5:29

your responses at work. Okay?

5:32

It's not your boss's fault, if

5:34

you have something happens at

5:36

work and then you go home and you shout at your spouse

5:38

or your kids. Right. It's the way that

5:40

you're processing

5:43

the emotion of what happened at work

5:45

that is affecting the way that you're

5:47

behaving at home. Okay. Really, really

5:49

important. And again, no

5:51

shame here. It's happened to all of us. All right,

5:53

let's go to the four responses. So fight

5:56

is when you get confrontational,

5:59

you just, the three things

6:01

that are mainly confrontation, justification and

6:03

denial. So you start fighting and you may

6:06

become defensive and confrontational

6:08

and you're arguing or blaming

6:10

other people to defend your actions,

6:13

without even looking at

6:15

the situation or anything. Number two, justification

6:18

is when you become aggressive and

6:21

you're justifying the mistake and you're insisting

6:23

that your approach was the best and the most most logical

6:26

choice at the time, number three

6:28

is denial. In some cases, you might completely

6:30

outright deny that the mistake was made,

6:33

even if it's in everyone's face.

6:35

And even if it's in the face of

6:37

evidence, Okay, the second

6:40

response is flight, and flight

6:42

is characterized by avoidance, withdrawal,

6:44

or distraction. So, you may

6:46

try to avoid,, discussing the mistake

6:49

or the consequences of your

6:52

actions, possibly even

6:54

physically leaving the situation, leaving

6:56

the room, because you're like, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna talk

6:58

about this, I'm not gonna discuss this, right?

7:00

you're avoiding it, right? Or you might

7:03

withdraw from conversations about

7:05

the mistake or from responsibilities

7:07

to avoid facing the issue.

7:10

Or you may engage

7:12

in,, unrelated activities

7:14

or tasks to distract yourself and

7:16

others from the fact that there was a mistake,

7:18

these are stress responses.

7:21

We behave in that way.

7:23

Automatically in most of the time we

7:25

don't realize this is what's going on, right?

7:28

Okay, number three is freeze. Freeze

7:30

is characterized

7:32

by inaction, silence or overthinking.

7:34

So you may become unable

7:37

to make a decision or

7:39

take action to correct the mistake.

7:41

You can't make a decision. You can't, Take

7:44

action. Like you just, you're stuck, right?

7:46

You're stuck. Number two is silence.

7:48

So you do, you go into silence

7:51

when the mistake is brought up and,,

7:53

you're unable to find a word or respond

7:55

to the questions about what happened. Another

7:58

thing that I've seen actually is kind of

8:00

similar is when people,,

8:02

they start ignoring others. For example, I work with

8:04

a manager once and you know, he,

8:06

he would, he would.

8:08

When people in his team made mistakes, he would

8:10

completely ignore them. Like, he

8:13

would stop, literally stop, give them

8:15

the silent treatment and it's like, what are you doing?

8:17

You can't do that, right? You need to address the

8:19

situation. But that was a stress response.

8:21

People behave in this way. It's not because

8:24

they're evil or they're horrible people.

8:26

They're stress responses, they're automatic

8:29

responses that, they're not even many

8:31

times aware of what they're doing

8:33

or the consequences of what they're doing. And sometimes

8:35

they are aware. They do it on purpose, but they

8:37

do it on purpose because it's a response.

8:40

That's how they cope with their own

8:42

emotional dysfunction. And so

8:44

again, no judgment here, but

8:47

being aware of what you're doing will get

8:49

you a step closer to being able to

8:52

deal with it in a different way. All right, overthinking,

8:54

you maybe get stuck in the loop

8:56

of overthinking the mistake

8:59

and you think about it over and over and over again

9:01

without moving towards a solution.

9:03

You have no intention of bringing, of

9:06

coming up with a solution, but you just stay in

9:08

the loop of, feeling bad about

9:10

it, thinking about it, again and again. Okay,

9:14

the next and last one is fawn.

9:16

So this one is very typical. With

9:18

women and where the three kind

9:20

of things that characterize it is pleasing,

9:22

overcompensating and seeking reassurance.

9:25

So you made a mistake and then

9:27

now, you may immediately

9:30

attempt to make amends by

9:32

excessively apologizing or trying

9:34

to please. Those

9:36

who were affected by the mistake,?

9:39

Or, or even overcompensating.

9:41

You take on additional tasks

9:43

and responsibilities beyond what is necessary

9:45

to make up for the mistake that you made.

9:48

and then seeking reassurance is all about constantly

9:51

seeking approval, constantly seeking

9:53

reassurance from others that the The mistake

9:55

is forgiven or that the mistake is

9:58

forgotten these are stress responses.

10:01

We don't do it on purpose. Nobody wants

10:03

to be insecure. Like nobody enjoys

10:05

being insecure and doing these things. The

10:08

thing for me here is that you

10:10

need to understand that these responses

10:12

they either run you or you run yourself

10:15

and that's why self leadership for me is

10:17

the most powerful tool

10:19

that a manager can have because when you identify

10:22

the things that are running you

10:25

then you can you can make a powerful

10:27

decision to take your power back

10:30

so what I'd like you to do is to

10:32

reflect and go, okay, take

10:34

a few minutes and say, okay, I

10:36

typically either I

10:38

fight or I phone,

10:41

right? I, I

10:43

either overcompensate and seek reassurance,

10:46

or I freeze

10:48

and I. I stay in silence

10:50

or I take no action I don't make any decisions

10:53

and I kind of sit there and wait, right? What

10:56

is your MO? Because again,

10:59

when you know your MO, the minute

11:01

you identify what's going on, you

11:03

have the power to change it. But the

11:05

issue is when the emotion is running you,

11:08

you're reacting and you're not leading

11:10

yourself. Cool.

11:12

I hope you find this helpful. Let

11:14

me know. and I would

11:17

so, so, so, so appreciate to hear

11:19

back and I'd like to see what, if this is resonating

11:21

with you. So lovely to have

11:23

you here again and I'll speak

11:26

to you soon. Bye for now.

Rate

Join Podchaser to...

  • Rate podcasts and episodes
  • Follow podcasts and creators
  • Create podcast and episode lists
  • & much more

Episode Tags

Do you host or manage this podcast?
Claim and edit this page to your liking.
,

Unlock more with Podchaser Pro

  • Audience Insights
  • Contact Information
  • Demographics
  • Charts
  • Sponsor History
  • and More!
Pro Features