Procrastination and the Fear of Failure

Perfection was expected in my home, always under the guise of “We just want you to do your best. As long as you do your best, we’ll be happy.” The problem is that “my best” was frequently insulted, and on those occasions I was able to live up to “my best” as my parents saw it, I was told I shouldn’t expect praise because those levels of accomplishment should just be my norm.

One of my earliest memories is coming to my parents with excitement because I had not only achieved a perfect score on a project but also received bonus points, and my parents scoffing and telling me “We’re not going to praise you every time you manage to spell your own name.”

On some level I knew that I could never realistically be perfect, but I was still hungry for the validation I rarely received. I reasoned with myself that if I just didn’t attempt too many things and really excelled at the few things I attempted, then maybe I would get approval. And if I failed, it was surely an indication that I was attempting too many things and should whittle down my projects, my interests, my self, even further.

There are only so many parts of yourself you can hack away before you stop being able to function.

By the time I was finally set loose into the world (I was kicked out several days after my 18th birthday in the middle of the night and told I couldn’t bring anything with me because it was in my parents home and thus belonged to them), I had a bad procrastination habit. I was absolutely terrified to begin anything and fail it, for fear it would open me to verbal and emotional abuse.

What this meant was that not only did I frequently abandon projects and interests, convinced that I wouldn’t succeed so what was the point in trying, but I also sought approval from authority figures that were only too happy to use my need for validation against me. I wouldn’t pursue my own interests, but I was pressured into doing the work of other people in return. It took me so, so long to break free of seeking the validation of people who, I eventually learned, only had as much authority as I was willing to give them.

Breaking free of the habit of procrastination and, ultimately, the fear of failure, has proven much harder. I can’t begin to count the number of novels I’ve begun writing, only to set them to the side because I was afraid a different idea might ultimately prove to be “the one” and that the work I was currently engaged in might not live up to some imaginary perfect standard.

I am only just now realizing that failure is, itself, a form of accomplishment, especially if you learn from it and apply it to your next attempt. Failure teaches us, it guides us down paths we couldn’t have imagined we’d explore before we made the attempt. Failure is a guidepost, it is not the final destination unless you give up.

I have a handful of classes left to take and one 55,000 word novel standing between me and finishing university with two degrees. I have stopped caring about whether I finish my degrees at a set deadline or even how I’m doing compared to others. All that matters to me is that I set out to do this thing, and I mean to accomplish it.

I have failed quite a lot in life. I intend to happily fail at procrastination, next.