I feel like a lot of my current anxieties and struggles with risk taking are as a result of being a pretty smart kid growing up. If you were “gifted” or found that school came really easy to you, you will probably relate to this. All the way up to probably grade 9, I did really well in school AND I loved learning. Barely had to study or try that hard to get great grades and received multiple academic awards over the years.

Once things got harder in grade 11 and 12, my grades suffered majorly. I was taken from a world where I didn’t have to study or really pay attention in class, straight into a world that was the complete opposite and it was hard. I stopped enjoying school. My confidence took a huge hit. I thought there was something wrong with me. I didn’t understand why I wasn’t smart anymore. Looking back now, I know that the work just progressively got harder and I got lenient and before I knew it the lack of paying attention and study caught up to me.

So how is this relevant to my current life? Well I don’t know if it is just an excuse I made up or if there is some science behind it, but I think the reason I give up on things is because subconsciously my brain thinks that when I do something that I am not immediately good at, it doesn’t like it. It is used to me being easily good at things back at school. So if I am not immediately good at whatever it is I am doing, I feel like I am never going to be good. So I might as well give up. I don’t know if that makes sense but that is how I process it in my brain.

I also feel like recently, now that I’ve thought about it and become a bit more aware, I have some better ways to tackle the things I want to do, without having an overwhelming amount of anxiety about failing or being judged for being bad at something.

What really helped my self awareness around this, was becoming a mechanic. It is a long story on how I got here (a story I will tell another day) but I am a 3rd year apprentice. I have completed about 2 1/2 years of my certificate and have about 1 1/2 years left. I knew nothing about cars when I started. I had very little hands on experience and there were some tough learning curves. I was not immediately good or talented at being a mechanic and I had to accept that I cannot know everything all at once and that it would take years to become experienced.

Pushing through that helped me realise that I can do hard things. I can be patient and take the time to learn and become more experienced. Some days I look back at the first jobs I did and how hard I thought they were and how long they took me to do, and that really makes me realise how far I’ve come. It also makes me think if I can get so much better at this in just a few years, what else can I do? I can do anything I want!

That being said, my major goal for the new year is to try more things. I promise I will report back!!!