And They Shall Know No Fear

Failure, it is a word much despised by most and loved by none. To me, failure seems a nigh unattainable thing, since regardless of whether one 'wins' or 'loses', they have gained.

When I failed my first black belt test, I never saw it as a failure to succeed; rather, I saw it as succeeding less than I would have liked. The journey counts for as much, in my opinion, as the destination, and even if you never reach the top of the mountain, you've at least had pleasant hike in your attempt. The only way to truly fail, to gain nothing, is to not try, to not pull on your hiking boots and have at 'er. To quit, give up, or otherwise hold yourself back is the worst thing one can do to themselves.

One never grows by holding back, technique and muscle aren't built on a couch.
If you set out to accomplish a goal and fall short it doesn't mean you're horrible, it does mean you have room to improve and something to work towards. Good for you, recycle that goal and get back to work. As long as one is moving forward, day by day, they will improve and become more successful.

There is no good reason not to try. Some folks procrastinate, waiting for a more opportune time, while others are lazy, seeming to detest being productive citizens, perhaps they are simply afraid to fail.

Fear of failure is, I think, one of the worst phobias. People naturally avoid their phobias, which is easy for spiders, snakes, and heights and one loses nothing from avoiding such things which cannot be made back somewhere else. The process of avoiding failure, however, bears marked resemblance to avoiding success. Why? Because they're essentially the same thing. Only very rarely in life is success guaranteed, and even then it's usually nothing big.

Failure, like snakes and spiders, should be respected for its venom, but not feared without reason. A fear of failure, of exposing one's weakness and limitations, is as a festering wound, and will most certainly destroy you if left untended. Illogicality exceeded only by lethality.

8 days into the ubbt it seems my first hurdle is overcoming such a nonsensical fear of failing. By failing to be public, a cycle I'm attempting herein to break, I have ostensibly quit the ubbt. In fact, I've done so twice or thrice in the past week. A fear of failing, appearing weak, sapped my gumption and that same fear of perceptible weakness kept me from seeking motivative aid. Doesn't make much sense does it?

My fears were supported, after a fashion, by a perceived inability to anything good enough, and at each turn it seemed all anyone could see were the short comings. Taking action to any end became more a forced march toward a predestined doom of those eyes which dissected me. I have never been the one to need compliments, and would much rather have constructive criticism any day. How can I address a problem I do not know? My trouble was not that I was receiving an unending stream of the constructive, but that I did not see it as such, it seemed my flaws were targeted rather than identified and at every turn the words 'You can't do it' rang in the back of my mind. How could I affirm people's doubts in me by seeking aid? This is not to say I thought people wanted me to fail, but it seemed no one saw the positive, always the negative. Each time I tried to break my little cycle that feeling of doom crept in, that no one would see it as anything but a failure, and so what s the point of doing what is doomed? At least if I didn't do it at all I wasn't doing it wrong.

On the other hand, I couldn't quit, because quitting is dumb. My refusal to quit was the only thing keeping in the game, but left me in a most uncomfortable limbo between quitting and not doing. The difference? I kept trying to break my cycle and fully intended to succeed...eventually.

It took a repetitious series of conversations between Master Brinker's boot and my rear end to jump start my motor and get into gear. Now I'm rolling in the right direction, upping my pushes, upping my sits, upping everything.

The only discernible method for besting this pesky flaw of mine is to become more engaged in the public aspect. The only way to stop hiding is to stop hiding and to this end I'm committing to spending at least 3 hours per week (156 hours this year) in the Kwoon. It is a requirement for sihings, why not for me?

This experience has put the PCP (Praise, Correct, Praise) rule in new light for me. I never really cared for the praise part, and was perfectly content to simply be corrected until I fixed the error, and was told to fix another. When teaching, I often neglected to praise students. However, upon re-evaluating the recent past it seems that there may be something to the rule other than simply keeping the student's confidence up. I've had many students tell me that they love constructive criticism when I have caught myself being too hard on them. This seemed to me to counter the PCP rule, since they didn't seem to need confidence boosts. Of course, other students needed confidence boosts and I acted accordingly with PCP. Now though, I think even if the person doesn't seem to need a confidence boost, complimenting them at least sets a positive mood for the coming onslaught of corrections. It shows that I'm there to help them along rather than simply tell them they're wrong. This is also a strike in favour of keeping on friendly terms with students, which also keeps the relationship positive. Certainly, the student might be confident now, but if all one does is correct them, then they can quickly be misconstrued as a negative force when the student's confidence falls. I say 'when', rather than 'if' because everyone loses steam at some point.