HOW TO OVERCOME YOUR FEAR OF MAKING MISTAKES.
The
Covid-19 crisis and its fallout — including recession, layoffs, and uneven
economic pain — as well as recent protests over police brutality and demands
for racial justice have presented many of us with challenges that we’ve not
encountered before. The high-stakes and unfamiliar nature of these situations
have left many people feeling fearful of missteps. No one can reduce mistakes
to zero, but you can learn to harness your drive to prevent them and channel it
into better decision making. Use these tips to become a more effective worrier.
DON’T BE AFRAID OR ASHAMED
OF YOUR FEAR.
Our
culture glorifies fearlessness. The traditional image of a leader is one who is
smart, tough, and unafraid. But fear, like any emotion, has an evolutionary
purpose and upside. Your concern about making mistakes is there to remind you
that we’re in a challenging situation. A cautious leader has value. This is
especially true in times like these. So don’t get caught up in ruminating: “I
shouldn’t be so fearful.”
Don’t
be ashamed or afraid of your fear of making mistakes and don’t interpret it as
evidence that you’re an indecisive leader, or not bold, not visionary. If you
have a natural tendency to be prevention-focused,
channel it to be bold and visionary! (If you struggle to believe this, identify
leaders who have done just that by figuring out how to prevent disasters.)
USE EMOTIONAL AGILITY
SKILLS.
Fear
of mistakes can paralyze people. Emotional agility skills are an
antidote to this paralysis. This process starts with labeling your thoughts and
feelings, such as “I feel anxious I’m not going to be able to control my
customers enough to keep my staff safe.” Stating your fears out loud helps
diffuse them. It’s like turning the light on in a dark room. Next comes
accepting reality. For example, “I understand that people will not always
behave in ideal ways.” List off every truth you need to accept. Then comes
acting your values. Let’s say one of your highest values is conscientiousness.
How might that value apply in this situation? For example, it might involve
making sure your employees all have masks that fit them well or feel
comfortable airing any grievances they have. Identify your five most important
values related to decision-making in a crisis. Then ask yourself how each of
those is relevant to the important choices you face.
Repeat
this process for each of your fears. It will help you tolerate the fact
that we sometimes need to act when
the best course of action isn’t clear and avoid the common
anxiety trap whereby people try to reduce uncertainty to zero.
FOCUS ON YOUR
PROCESSES.
Worrying
can help you make better decisions if you do it effectively. Most people don’t.
When you worry, it should be solutions-focused, not just perseverating on the
presence of a threat. Direct your worry towards behaviors that will
realistically reduce the chances of failure.
We can
control systems, not outcomes. What are your systems and processes for avoiding
making mistakes? Direct your worries into answering questions like these: Is
the data you’re relying on reliable? What are the limitations of it? How do
your systems help prevent groupthink? What procedures do you have in place to
help you see your blind spots? How do you ensure that you hear valuable
perspectives from underrepresented stakeholders? What are your processes for
being alerted to a problem quickly and rectifying it if a decision has
unexpected consequences?
BROADEN YOUR
THINKING.
When
we’re scared of making a mistake, our thinking can narrow around that
particular scenario. Imagine you’re out walking at night. You’re worried about
tripping, so you keep looking down at your feet. Next thing you know you’ve
walked into a lamp post. Or, imagine the person who is scared of flying. They
drive everywhere, even though driving is objectively more dangerous. When you
open the aperture, it can help you see your greatest fears in the broader
context of all the other threats out there. This can help you get a better
perspective on what you fear the most.
It
might seem illogical that you could reduce your fear of making a mistake by
thinking about other negative outcomes. But this strategy can help kick you
into problem-solving mode and lessen the mental grip a particular fear has on
you. A leader might be so highly focused on minimizing or optimizing for one
particular thing, they don’t realize that other people care most about
something else. Find out what other people’s priorities are.
RECOGNIZE THE VALUE OF
LEISURE.
Fear
grabs us. It makes it difficult to direct our attention away. This is how it is
designed to work, so that we don’t ignore threats. Some people react to fear
with extreme hypervigilance. They want to be on guard, at their command post,
at all times. This might manifest as behavior like staying up all night to
work.
That
type of adrenalin-fueled behavior can have short-term value, but it can also be
myopic. A different approach can be more useful for bigger picture thinking. We
need leisure (and sleep!) to step back, integrate the threads of our thinking,
see blindspots, and think creatively. Get some silent time. Although much
maligned, a game of golf might be exactly what you need to think about tough
problems holistically.
DETACH FROM
JUDGMENT-CLOUDING NOISE.
As
mentioned, when people are fearful they can go into always-on monitoring mode.
You may have the urge to constantly look at what everyone else is doing, to
always be on social media, or check data too frequently. This can result in
information overload. Your mind can become so overwhelmed that you start to
feel cloudy or shut down. Recognize if you’re doing this and limit
over-monitoring or overchecking. Avoid panicked, frenzied behavior.
On its
own, being afraid of making mistakes doesn’t make you more or less likely to
make good decisions. If you worry excessively in a way that focuses only on how
bad the experience of stress and uncertainty feels, you might make do or say
the wrong things. However, if you understand how anxiety works at a cognitive
level, you can use it to motivate careful but bold and well-reasoned choices.
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