The fear of making mistakes vanishes when you allow yourself to learn

Nov. 11, 2024 - Manila, Philippines - Bienvenido Ponce

Originally published on Medium

Exploring new environments, meeting new people, and discovering new things can sometimes be scary. It is always terrifying to do new things alone, particularly when I feel far from my comfort zone. I do not know what lies ahead, whom I will meet, or what can happen — the inevitability of the unknown frightens me. 

When going to a strange place alone, I am too shy to ask people around me which train station or particular place to drop off, which jeepney signboard to ride, or how I can manage to get there. It is funny to think that I am too shy to do those things, yet I am also scared of getting lost — of making mistakes. 

But there will be times when we are forced to do new things alone and scared. For me, this was a jeepney ride to my new workplace alone. Surrounded by strangers and looking at the unfamiliar scenery from the jeepney windows made me more weary, whether I had already arrived at my destination or passed through it unnoticed. 

I told myself a day before riding that jeep, to let this new experience be a learning opportunity. Somehow, I felt comfort because I was allowing myself to actually learn before thinking about the fear of getting lost. If I let my fear consume my mind first, I cannot function as I must. The more reason to commit mistakes. 

Besides, I am not lost yet. Investing time thinking about the unknown — situations that have not occurred yet — corrupts our judgment. Most of the time we often create negative alternate outcomes to our minds of what can happen. Our immediate response to those outcomes is to be scared as if our brains are hardwired that way. 

When fear compounds over time, it hinders us from taking action. And when our actions are delayed, the results get delayed too. It is valid to be scared when faced with giants, adversities we thought were bigger than we could handle. But we should not allow fear to dictate and operate our lives. We take the wheel and steer it toward a life living in learning and not in fear.

"The only way to learn is to live."

I remembered this quote from Matt Haig’s “The Midnight Library,” and I realized that fear inhibits us from living. To live is not just to breathe, to live is a will to experience life in its entirety. There is a noticeable difference between a breathing person without the will to live and a person who values every breath — the latter keeps on learning.

The second we decided to live is the moment we chose to learn. Allowing ourselves to learn breaks the barrier. I learned to connect with people, I learned to ask so I could know which jeepney signboard I should ride, and I learned to take every new experience as a learning opportunity. Then the fear of making mistakes vanishes because I allowed myself to learn. 

Now, I can look outside the jeepney windows with joy appreciating the surroundings, exploring the details of the place, and arriving at my destination with a sense of navigation because I asked this time. 

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