One of the main reasons we don’t try new things or avoid repeating things is fear of embarrassment.
We each experience it in different ways.
For me, one of the areas of life where I experience it deeply is golfing. It’s perhaps the game with the highest possibility for embarrassment.
Imagine playing a game where you’re playing your absolute best and winning and then instead of hitting a shot straight ahead (90 degrees) you hit one 45 degrees to the right. There are also many other ways to hit very embarrassing shots.
It’s even happened to Tiger Woods.
Over the years, many people have discussed the traits needed to be a great golfer. Or even a good golfer. Some have said that the best of all time, including Tiger Woods and Jack Nicklaus, were great in large degree from their ability to not feel embarrassment.
At least not to the degree of their peers. You can’t hit a bad shot and go into the next shot thinking you’ll do it again. That is fear of embarrassment. Tiger and Jack were great with their confidence. They thought, nearly 100% of the time, that their next shot would be a good one.
Obviously there are varying degrees of this confidence. If you’ve never done something before you can’t expect reasonable, unless by miracle, to do it perfectly.
But that’s another point. Many things in life are just about numbers. If we knew that we had to do something 100 times in order to reach the first time we did something really good we would probably do more things.
But we get hung up on those first 100. Maybe not at first. But after a few add up we start to question the reason why we do something.
I remember reading a study about people that drove their vehicles slowly. Especially those over 70 years old. The hypothesis of the study was that it was due to mental decline. The finding, however, was that this wasn’t the case at all. Drivers were slower because they were afraid to make mistakes. They were afraid to be embarrassed.
I’m not saying it’s easy to not fear embarrassment. I’m saying it’s okay to feel that way. Other people don’t really care that much. You feel it more than anyone else. But only if you let it.