How to Overcome A Fear of Failing in Order to Succeed

Fear is defined as a distressing emotion aroused by impending danger. As human beings we have a certain control of what we fear and what we don't. Fear is actually a learned behavior. We learned it when we were young either from our parents, movies, friends, television etc. I have been afraid of spiders ever since I watched the movie Arachnophobia. I used to be the one who would walk out to the opposite end of the room away from where ever the spider was until it was killed.

I grew up being afraid of losing. There were high expectations of me and I feared the consequences of failing. I also hated disappointing my parents and questioned whether I was even good enough to succeed inside or outside of sports. I made the decision to learn on my own at 16 years young. I taught myself to find ways to succeed whether in practice, tournaments, or even playing Madden against my friends. I hated to lose, bottom line. I began to study patterns and percentages on the practice court, I would break down defensive coverages on paper in order to find any advantage possible to beat my friends in Madden, and I began to study my opponents during the warm up and the first 4 games of each set. By doing this I was able to identify any changes in their strategy or game play at any point and I would adjust accordingly in order to succeed. Eventually I won over 70% of my matches and was nearly unbeatable in Madden with my friends. A bit competitive huh!?

Fear paralyzes us. It prevents us from moving forward and succeeding, from analyzing our failures, from seeing what is possible and what can be reached. Some of us are born to succeed and some of us are born with the work and grind mentality. For me things came easy to me but winning did not, I was paralyzed by fear. It takes hard work, patience, and support in order to overcome fear and succeed.

Three things that helped me learn to succeed were:

1. Hard work - whether I won or lost I was analyzing what I could improve for the next time. I shortened practices but made them more intense and focused on perfection. It worked for me, it may or may not for you.

2. Have fun - its easy to get lost searching for success, I got lost a few times myself and it was because I forgot how to have fun doing what I was doing.

3. Be patient - overcoming fears will not happen overnight. Three years later I still pause when I see a spider but I no longer fear them, I let them do their own thing as I am not on their list of preferred foods!

I no longer fear failure. The greatest champions failed many many times before becoming who they are. Failure only makes us stronger. Yes it hurts, it sucks and can really mess you up but at the end of the day it won't kill you. My motto is simple: "What you call pain, I call freedom"


  

ADHD in Children and Adolescents

DISCLAIMER: The following is my personal views and experience working in the field over the last 3 years.

According to many ADHD is the most over diagnosed disorder in the country. I would have to agree with this. Now a days it seems that any child who is unable to sit still or focus on a single task at hand has an attention problem. Instead of figuring out the problem educators are sending parents to doctors to get medication in order to "calm" the child down. I think this is absolute crap and laziness on their part. 

Did you know that 9% of kids diagnosed with ADHD are given medication? While in France only .5% of the kids diagnosed with ADHD are given medication. Here is the article I got those statistics from Why French Kids Don't Have ADHD. After reading that article I went back and changed my way of working and studying the population I work with. I made a case study out of one of my patients at the time. I discussed with his parents my idea and what the goals were for the new direction of therapy, they agreed to comply and so for one month we ONLY did family therapy in which we focused solely on the parents problems while having the child sit in during the therapy sessions. At the beginning the child was uncomfortable and would try a variety of distraction methods to throw us off. After 2 weeks and him being allowed to participate and express himself the results were very visible. He stopped bouncing off the walls, he improved his relationship with his father, and he was able to start the first 2 months of the school year without going back to his medication (nearly 5 months off his medication). After 4 weeks even the child's tone of voice was lower and he was able to sit through a therapy session with minimal interruptions.

ADHD is not an illness that needs to be medicated, its a problem within the family itself. It can be a lack of communication with the parents and siblings, could be lack of a male or female figure, abuse or trauma or something going on within their own lives that they do not feel comfortable sharing with their families in fear of what may be said or thought of them. Children keep this stuff inside and then are completely unable to focus when in school. Allowing children to express themselves is the quickest way to "fix" attention problems.

Take time to listen and teach them some coping skills, not only will they appreciate you helping them outside of school, the parents will appreciate you helping them in school. Also take time to talk to the parents, if you are not a therapist then offer for them to see the school psychologist or counselor or refer them to someone you may know who specializes in children and adolescents. Sometimes the kids you think are the worst are that way because they are the ones calling out for the most help.

My advice to parents if you notice your child appears distracted, avoidant (unless he's a teenager!) avoids arguments or discussions that may get heated, is to look inward and consider what's going on within your own relationships that may be causing this behavior. I'm not saying it's always your fault but from experience at least 70-75% of the time it is. By working on yourselves and improving your own relationships you will also improve your relationship with your child. 

Catching Up and Starting Fresh

So for the last nearly 2 years I have been MIA. Literally. I stopped training to finish my Masters in Psychology and then I began to work 80 hours a week to make ends meet. At one point I had 4 jobs and was still barely making ends meet. Welcome to the real world huh?

Last month I completed my first 30 Runs in 30 Days in over 2 years. I completed it while running in my SeeYa's which I absolutely love. I did a loading period with Power Bar High Intensity Beta Alanine and that combined with Mobility work and the Roller made me see Magnificent results. Within 2.5 weeks I had improved my 3.4 mile daily run by 90 seconds and by the end of the 30 days on my best run I managed to drop 2 minutes from when I started.

Total numbers were

28 runs in 30 days
96 miles
24 miles per week average.

I think of all my ventures over the last 2 years the 30 Runs in 30 Days was my most successful. I have been emotionally numb from the draining of the last year. The stress, emotionally and physically was brutal and its taking me some time to feel normal from a mental health point of view. The reality is that over the last year I failed like I never had in my life. I have lost big tennis matches, been robbed of them by umpires, I had pulled out of races because of injuries but I had never been exposed to the kind of failure I did over the last year. I nearly failed with maintaining my relationship with my gf, I had serious debt problems and I was working a job that showed one as much value as being a slave and there is no honour in doing that. I can honestly say that besides having met my gf and stolen her number, quitting everything I had and starting fresh in March of 2014 has to be the best decision I have made since I decided to go to school for a year at Northern Arizona. I have more financial stability, I have had some new doors open but I am still not quite doing what I love which is working with adolescent athletes and children. I have a lot of fixing to do and a lot of learning and accepting to do but I feel I am on the right track. Its about time I get back on here and write and help educate others.

Thanks for reading!