Illustration by Vincent Giarrano
I recently had to buy a new notebook dedicated to writing my drafts, I made a list of criteria (big, opens flat, had back and blank pages) and headed to WHSmith. Usually, I tend to pick the nicest one, the one with a cool cover, high grain count and expensive, go home and place it on a shelf to mature (3-4 years). The issue with nice notebooks being my ugly doctor-like handwriting and worthless ideas: I don’t want to ruin them. Worst, what if I make a mistake and have to…strikethrough? Nope, not happening. As I was contemplating the Rolls-Royce of notebooks, a Moleskine, I went another way and chose the shittiest, most basic notepad I could find: A4, 200 pages, 70 mg, pre-holed. I started an experience: am I more likely to write if I am not afraid to defile it? So far, it has been a success.
Hoping to find a cure for my pathological fear of failure, I wondered how to transpose this into a solution for my day-to-day life. The first step is to accept mistakes and to remind myself that failing is part of the process, the second step is heavy shock therapy to force peace and serenity in regard to said failure. I already feel much better. All jokes aside and as unintuitive as it may seem, perfectionism, fear of failure and procrastination are deeply connected and, in my case, often lead to self-sabotage (see here). Since I don’t bother trying, I cannot fail. It’s easy and much simpler than facing my fear and taking a meaningful risk. It is like refusing to run for the train, if I run and still miss it I will look like an idiot and put effort into it for nothing (not even mentioning the sweat). The downside of not running is the unknown: would I have caught the bloody train?
By this overused metaphor, I am trying to say that you can avoid the ridiculousness of failure by accepting defeat without a fight. Don’t try, don’t fail, never find out all the “could have been”. And god knows, I always thought I was a hard worker and a fighter, all the lies and illusions we create to protect ourselves. I had to come to terms with it when my therapist put my nose in my own shit (pardon the graphic language) and I was forced to realise I was not that person anymore. The cost of entry is failing, learn from your mistakes and eventually you will master the art of whatever you are trying to master. For the last month or so I have tried to cure my atychiphobia with exposure therapy (write smaller things) and a strong reminder that no one cares (if no one cares, no one is there to judge). A combination that proved itself in the past.
What is the result you could ask. Well, since I put myself out of my comfort zone, I found out that I do love writing and it is getting easier with practice (who knew!), I even find myself craving to write more consistent articles. I learned that growing an audience is 1) boring, 2) a lot more work than posting once a week and a few Instagram stories, and 3) I am NOT a good seller. I also realised it is not that painful to not accomplish prodigious overnight success (this is hard to write, I will not lie). Knowing my tendency to sabotage myself, I know the biggest obstacle is a strong desire to say “screw this” and abandon the ship. I would be a terrible captain.
As I am coming to an end and my ideas are drifting, I realise I have no idea of the word count (thanks for my notepad) and I may not be able to re-read myself. In conclusion: make mistakes, it doesn’t matter because no one cares (which is only a figure of speech, don’t come crying), and everyone is too busy with their own fear and dreams. I just needed to take the first step. I got a shit notepad to overcome my writing block and feel free to make mistakes, away from a screen (and the annoying keyboard). And it’s fucking amazing. There is a strong sense of freedom once you release some useless pressure. I feel like this article lost its course and I stopped to make sense about 73 words ago, my mistake.
Post Scritum: for full disclosure, I do have to say I fear no failure and know how to make mistakes in some domains of life. The issue is then to learn something out of it, but we’ll talk about it later.
Nice! Keep on writing.