Reframing

Reframing

I’m reading a book by Ruth Soukup,  entitled Do It Scared- Finding the Courage to Face Your Fears, Overcome Adversity, and Create a Life You Love.

In her book she has identified seven archetypes of fear, and includes an online assessment to help determine your dominant archetype. (doitscared.com/assessment.com)

Although, this is not my main archetype, I found a lot of similarity in The Procrastinator, or Perfectionist. Often times, I delay starting something because I’m afraid I might not do a good enough job on the task at hand. I’m great at researching, and planning, but actually taking action is where I struggle. 

One of her recommendations for conquering this fear is the strategy of reframing. Soukup writes,

“When you can start looking at life as a series of lessons rather than mistakes, it will give you more freedom to experiment rather than always striving to achieve perfection.”

I’ve recently started following a You Tuber who has moved to Oklahoma, and is starting his own homestead. He has spoken in the past about looking at each endeavor toward his dream as an “experiment.” When you think back to the science class of your elementary school days, getting to do an experiment was always a big deal. 

You would begin with a hypothesis, and then proceed to test it out. Even if it didn’t turn out exactly as you had hoped, you never really considered it a failure. You just chalked it up to experience, and either tweaked your initial hypothesis, or tweaked your process. 

What a great way to look at approaching your dreams. Try something, and value the lesson learned. Keep trying, and learning, and keep trying again. 

Don’t be afraid of the mistake. Welcome it as part of the process.

As I continue to read, and learn more about the other fear archetypes I’ll be interested to find out more about The People Pleaser, and how that archetype holds me back. I’ll share that information in a few days. 

Do you see yourself at all in The Procrastinator, putting off something because you are afraid of making a mistake?

“Perfectionism is not as much the desire for excellence as it is the fear of failure couched in procrastination.”

Dan Miller

48 Days to the Work You Love