Remember Stella? The one who hasn't changed her clothes, hair, or make up since the 70's? Well I hate to keep picking on her, but I'm realizing this stuff is all connected. Not only does Stella fight, kick, and scream to resist change in her life, but she also doesn't like to make decisions. Stella is bright, and she knows what's going on at work, but if there's any way at all to avoid it, Stella absolutely will not make a decision on her own. Even if she knows the answer, she'd rather shoot the question past someone....ANYONE, and have them make the call. What causes this? Fear. Fear of making a wrong decision. Fear of being responsible if something goes wrong. After all, if someone else made the call, then it's not Stella's fault. She's off the hook. I believe this is directly related to the resistance of change in her life. "What if I make a change and don't like it? What if I make a change, and something goes wrong? There's no one else to blame then, but me".
I'll be the first to admit when I've made a mistake. I take responsibility for my actions, and don't try to push my bad decisions off on others. But the fear of failure mortifies me. It always has. When I was little, I never wanted to try new things because I was convinced all the other kids already knew how to do things and I would look stupid because I was new at it. I'm still that way. I'm terrified of being out of control, or trying something new and failing. After all, failing means you didn't have control over the situation; right? And we all know I have serious control issues (as do many of my readers), so feeling, or appearing to be out of control is not an option for me.
I think this fear of failure keeps many of us from making decisions or making big changes in our lives. I'm quite sure it simply paralyzes me.
Reason #2 I fear change: What if I make a bad decision? What if I....fail?
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