Ask Sam - Fear of Failure

Though emotions can be quite overwhelming and powerful, they really act as an inner compass, helping us to get in touch with what we're needing and wanting. I'm Sam Snowden and this is "Ask a Teacher." I'm a freshman college student. Recently I've been feeling stressed over the fear of failure and the what-ifs and even feeling like I shouldn't belong where I'm at. Do you have any advice or tips to combat these emotions? Hi, Tyler. Thank you for your question. So starting college is a major life transition and transitions like this bring up a lot of feelings, a lot of fears, because it's new for us and our brain's fear center is really active during this time. So it's trying to predict future challenges and help you prepare for them. So it's helpful to remember that these new challenges are adding more substance and meaning to your life and it's a really exciting time. And these challenges might require more of your energy, more of your focus, and more of your curiosity. So just by remembering that many stressors go hand in hand with meaning and purpose helps us to integrate our experience and then it helps thoughts to come and go with greater ease and less resistance. So one word that you used that really stood out to me was the word combat. And instead of thinking about your emotions as these things you have to fight or get rid of, it's helpful to think of them as visitors, right? They're visiting, they're temporary, and they're there to just kind of help you to assess what you need and what direction you wanna move in. So though emotions can be quite overwhelming and powerful, they really act as an inner compass, helping us to get in touch with what we're needing and wanting. And that doesn't mean we should react or act on all of our emotions. It just means that we can take a different approach to our emotions so that we have a relationship that's built on listening and getting curious and finding out what we really need. So I recommend printing out a list of feelings and needs that you can use to identify your emotions with more precision. This helps our mind to feel settled and safe as we're no longer confused by that flurry of nameless emotions that can be swirling around. Perhaps fear is showing up because you have a need for confidence and reassurance. Once we identify what we're feeling and needing, we can help get our needs met. So try asking yourself, what are some ways that you know you belong right where you are? Can you bring to mind some of the efforts that you've made on your academic journey to get where you are? Remembering times that we've overcome adversity helps us to remember our strengths, our inner resources, and how resilient we really are. And it's also okay to acknowledge that you don't have all...