“Sure, I’d love to bring in another yoga instructor. Tell me about your class, and when you want to start”. This was almost two years ago, and I still remember it like it was yesterday. I’d given myself a super-stellar pep talk and had placed a visit to Nina, owner of Nina’s Yoga in Fairfield. I was ready to shoot my shot at securing my very first official yoga teaching gig. Nina was so receptive, and confident that I would do great. The reality was, even though I truly believed in the class format I was pitching, my heart was racing 100 miles an hour and I was TERRIFIED. I shushed all the voices in my head - “what if no one comes”, “what if I forget my flow”, “what if they hate it?” In this moment none of that mattered. I asked Nina to give me a shot, and she said ‘yes’. But how did I get the courage to ask, and what did I do next?

The Psychology of Fear

We all face fear of failure of some sort at some point in our lives. It’s often generated by anticipating negative outcomes or having been deeply impacted by past failure or perception of failure. People who are prone to perfectionism are often highly impacted by this fear.
I want to spend the next few blog sessions diving deeper into fear together. It’s a lofty one. I tried a single write-up, and it was a no-go. There’s a lot there. So we’ll break it down together.
For some, there is a genuine psychological condition called atychiphobia. And when atychiphobia is experienced to a greater magnitude, it likely requires therapeutic intervention. However, for many of us, fear of failure is a relatively natural occurrence that we can address by changing our outlook and approach.
Teaching my very first yoga class certainly elicited some pretty strong fear responses, but they weren’t the first I’d ever faced, and certainly won’t be the last. What has made all the difference for me has been my choice of response. And given my history with anxiety, it’s a topic I’ve devoted a considerable amount of time researching and exploring within my own life. So I invite you to come along on this journey with me as we explore this fear more deeply, and create space to overcome fear of failure.

Do you have special tips or techniques that have worked well for you? I’d love to hear them, and maybe even incorporate them into one of the next features.

Namaste,

Tian