Fear of Losing

I was in the third grade. Like most third graders I had a vivid imagination and lots of energy, and I loved to draw. One day in class as I was drawing away, oblivious to everything but the smell of the crayons, the feel of them on the paper and the wild and wonderful colours they produced.

I suddenly noticed that all the other kids were laughing and making fun of my drawing. It took me aback. I was sort of stung. The well-intentioned teacher admonished the other children for laughing but reminded me that the assignment was to colour inside the lines.

I was deeply embarrassed and decided at that moment that I never wanted to experience that kind of stuff again. I made a simple decision never to draw again. Even though I enjoyed drawing it became more important never to risk being “humiliated”.

It is not important to know whether I wanted to become an artist and if my aspirations were destroyed in the third grade. I will never know—because I chose a path designed to avoid situations where I might be embarrassed like that again. My early warning system went on alert at that moment and it generalized. It no longer warned me simply about drawing; it helped me avoid situations where embarrassment might occur. And this influenced all kinds of choices I made later in life.

Our early warning systems are put on full alert early in our lives to help us avoid situations in which our status or sense of belonging might be threatened. And so when we are asked whether we experience fear, the reasonable answer is no, because we have often spent a lifetime avoiding those situations where fear or embarrassment might result.

Analysts call this strategy as “Playing not to Lose”. Playing not to lose is like playing tennis against an eight year old who hasn’t played before. We aren’t in any jeopardy of losing; we can claim ourselves to be winner after every match…but we are not playing (living) anywhere near our potential because we are afraid of losing.

We often adopt the “play not to lose” strategy coz we believe that the consequences of embarrassment or losing are awful. We imagine them to be so awful that they are akin to psychological death---“I’ll be embarrassed to death”. This avoidance of embarrassment or losing leads us to regret later in life.

Ask yourself:

a) How you define winning, at work in the family, in other aspects of your life?
b) What situations you avoid because at some level you think there is a risk of losing a sense of belonging or status?
c) What situations do you avoid that could be important to your personal or professional growth?