GO Month: Mental Clutter - F

Let's celebrate Get Organized (GO) Month by ridding ourselves of mental clutter from A to Z!

To celebrate Get Organized (GO) Month I'm doing a series of posts on the mental clutter that can be just as pervasive as physical clutter. For each letter, I'll talk about a mental stumbling block that often impacts our well-being.

Let's focus on F ... Fear of Making Mistakes

Let's talk about FOMM shall we? This is not FOMO (fear of missing out), but FOMM - fear of making mistakes.

Fear of making mistakes is a mindset fueled by perfectionist standards that result in a person giving up before they even start. The problem with this fear is that it is unattainable and unrealistic. To look at it another way one might say that we don't actually fear the mistake making itself, but rather we fear what we believe will happen if we make a mistake. Given our society glorifies fearlessness, this puts us in a tough spot with this distorted way of thinking.

This faulty thinking can also halt the learning and growing process. When you make a mistake, it means you learned something. This fear of mistakes can foster unhappiness and comparison. Instead, it's better to lean into the possibility of making mistakes as your thoughts aren't facts.

Ways to combat this thinking include:

• Practice making small mistakes with mild consequences to see that it's not earth-shattering

• State your fears out loud to diffuse them

• Recognize that cream-of-the-crop perfectionists have made mistakes

• View mistakes as challenges to try harder and go deeper

• Ask for help from an expert in the issue you're struggling with

"Mistakes are part of the dues one pays for a full life."

Sophia Loren

Here's to freeing ourselves from the mental clutter of the fear of making mistakes!

Please share with someone who needs a clearer mindset.

featured image by Free-Photos from Pixabay