Fear of Failure In Midlife
“I’m going to start to a blog,” I said. And for the first couple of months, I kept it under wraps before sharing my vision with my husband. I was embarrassed and ashamed to tell him my short and long-term plans with the site.
“What if it flops and no reads a damn thing?”
“What if he sees it as ‘just another project’?”
In our nearly 20-years together, he’s watched me crash and burn so many dreams, just the thought of telling him another one felt like a cruel joke - for both of us, really.
Until recently, my passions and purpose have felt so incredibly vague, just the thought of taking another plunge into the unknown content and community-building world didn’t feel much different. “I’m writing,” I figured. “At least it’s more ‘me’ than anything else.”
During one of our summer camping trips, I finally came clean and told him. He nodded and said, “that’s great” with about as much enthusiasm as when I’ve told him I’ve deep-cleaned the house or started a purging spree.
I don’t know what I thought he should say or what it was I wanted or needed from him in the moment, but his lack of excitement and encouragement made me question what the hell I was doing in the first place. Maybe it really was just another “phase” or “project” or “flop” waiting to happen. And maybe that’s what I was afraid of:
Failing. Again.
“Look at every failure or flop as one of the 999 you’re going to need to bring you closer to success…”
When I was growing up, failing and failure wasn’t so much frowned upon as it was encouraged.
“You’re only going to have a few grand performances in your life,” my high school band teacher once said. “Look at every failure or flop as one of the 999 you’re going to need to bring you closer to success…”
I took that advice to heart and have humbly applied it to many of my mishaps and fuck ups over the years. But now at midlife, time feels fleeting, and failure less of an option.
And if this blog - this project about and for midlife and menopausal women got 0 followers, 0 support, and 0 interest - failed too, then what? What would that mean?
Who would I be then?
I don’t want to be irrelevant or die and leave a memory to my children as the mom who just couldn’t hack anything substantial besides cooking, cleaning, and on a fair-weather day, car pooling.
Now more than ever, I’m terrified of failing in midlife. I don’t want to be irrelevant or die and leave a memory of me to my children as the mom who just couldn’t hack anything substantial besides cooking, cleaning, and on a fair-weather day, car pooling.
I want them to say, “Oh, Mom? She was badass. When she said she was going to do something, she DID it. And she did it WELL.”
But what does that mean really? I’ll have a shelf of awards and trophies? I’ll get nominated a “Best Seller” for the NY Times?
I’ve asked myself this question more times than I can count and have yet to come up with a sensible answer.
I also want my kids to know i trIed…
So, each day I wake up with the notion that this might not work. This blog and my future dreams of Midlife It and career as a published author might mean nothing to any woman anywhere in her midlife development. And these might very well be another notch in my belt of fuck ups. But I also want my kids to know I tried. With all my heart and soul, I’ve given my dreams and passions the best I could.
And that’s what I want my kids to do - try.
Try everything they’re curious about. Want to fly? Take a pilot class. Want to bake the perfect cake? Google and bake every damn recipe till they find “the one”. And if they want to win an Oscar, well, find an agent and act like the part was meant for them.
Trying doesn’t mean you’ll get it. It doesn’t mean you’ll win or succeed or gain any more approval or brownie points. But you tried with your whole heart. And that’s what I try to do. Every. Damn. Day.
I’ve never considered myself brave - like I said, I’m terrified of failing, and for the record, ask my husband how hard I am on myself when I do.
But the one thing I’m more scared of than failing, is dying with a list of things I wanted to do, but didn’t because, well, because I was afraid.
“Being brave isn’t the absence of fear. Being brave is having that fear but finding a way through it.”
And this - Midlife It and the coming podcast Midlife On Fire - might be another failure. Writing might not be my "success” in terms of money or recognition. But its mine. My failure to own and know I tried my damnedest to make it work.
My kids might remember all the days I locked myself in my room and stared at the screen with the fastest typing skills they’d ever seen. They might say, “Yeah, my mom had this idea that never went anywhere…”
But I want them to also remember I sure tried.
That’s who I am though; who I’ve been, and who I’ll always be - a woman who tried a lot of things: careers, foods, zip codes, dreams…
And I still don’t want to fail. I want to watch a seed I’ve planted grow into something great and beautiful. Like anyone else, I want to succeed or at least feel successful in an endeavor I’ve put my lifeblood into.
But I’ve also learned that in midlife it’s no longer about the destination - the finish line or the “win.” It’s about the journey. It’s about the effort it took to get somewhere - the hiccups, the successes, the failures - all of it. And while I still fear the shame and frustration failing often brings, I remind myself that trying is all I can do.
“I know this blog might fail and flop,” I told my husband. “But I’ll know I’ve tried…”
And to my amazement, with more enthusiasm and emotion this time he replied:
“I don’t care if you fail. I care that you find joy and learn something new about yourself in the process.”
I appreciated my husband’s sentiment and tried to let go of the boiling anxiety in my belly. Then, I remembered another phrase my high school band teacher used to say and calmed my midlife fears of failure once and for all:
“you’ll only 100% fail at something if You don’t try. If You dO You’ll Reduce the odds to 50%.”
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