I am, perhaps, the world’s worst when it comes to stressing myself out about nothing. Someone sends me a message asking, “Can you call me?” Immediate panic. I get called on to speak in a class I’m doing well in? You would think the world was ending. I shake, stumble over my words, my face turns bright red and my every thought is consumed by how I am not prepared for the situation at hand, even though, realistically, I am – or, more commonly, there is no preparation necessary to begin with. 

Even in situations when there is a small amount of pressure, like a presentation or meeting, I know everyone there wants the best for me and, in all honesty, is probably too busy thinking about other things to notice my small errors or nervous speed-talking. Still, I feel like such a failure if I mess one tiny thing up. 

Every time I am in one of these situations, I come out of it thinking about how silly I am, how stupid it is to get so worked up about things that are, in the grand scheme of things, a tiny blip, meaningless and forgettable. No one, even me, will remember the seemingly thousands of times I get stressed in a day, and I use this fact to comfort myself when I do things out of my norm and feel like I’m dying a little inside. It works, for the most part. 

There are times, though, when things genuinely do go wrong. I say the wrong thing. I make careless errors that ruin an entire end product. I get so overwhelmed by school and work and the newspaper and trying to see family and friends semi-regularly, and it seems like I’ll never make it out of the never-ending pile of work that I’m barely keeping up with. I’m a bad friend, a bad partner, a bad kid, a bad student, or employee or leader, and it seems like there is nothing I can do to fix it or come back from my mistakes. I feel stuck, paralyzed by fear and dread and the all-consuming feeling of failure, and it’s terrifying. 

Thankfully, I have an amazing support system around me, filled with people who encourage and love me despite my flaws, and there will never be a day when I am not insanely appreciative of all they do for me. However, not everyone has this, and even though I do have people behind me, I don’t always want to admit my mistakes to them, afraid this time will be what causes them to finally hate me. If I don’t feel like I can talk to others about these things, what can I do? I’m left with just myself to fall back on. 

Recently, it feels like I have made a lot of these world-altering mistakes, and, frankly, I am sick of feeling like I’ve just royally screwed up my life on a regular basis because of a single error. I am tired of feeling terrified of simply existing, of speaking, of even breathing wrong. So, something needs to change. 

I’ve decided that maybe my mindset, and not my actions, is the answer to this problem. This is not to say I should try to mess up my life or stop caring when I do make mistakes, but I should change my outlook on life and the very human errors that I, and so many others, make on a daily basis. I need to learn how to treat myself with kindness, the same kindness I give others, even when they make mistakes.

I recently read a quote saying something to the effect of, “You’ve done it before, so you can do it again,” and, in that moment, something that is probably common knowledge for 99 percent of the population seemed like a revelation to me. I have done hard things. I have taken on challenges, and I have made mistakes, and I have made efforts to improve from those mistakes, and every single time I have ever felt suffocated by my own fear, I have made it out alive and unscathed on the other side – though, I usually learn valuable lessons from those mistakes, which I am thankful for. Challenges and setbacks and every other thing I stress about on a daily basis do nothing but teach me how to approach problems, relationships and life in general in a more effective way. 

I know I am not the only one who feels this way, and I know there are countless others who feel stuck like I often do. I know the feeling, but it helps to tell myself that if I have done it and gotten through it before, I can do it again, and so can you. You can do it again. I believe in you.