(no subject)

[liralen]

Sometimes I will be having a meal or just doing a hallway talk with some of my co-workers and they'll be talking about how impressed they are that I actually talked with dragon a, b, or c about a pet peeve of theirs, and I'll shrug and say, "Well, I was terrified, but someone had to do it."

They're always surprised that I'm terrified, "But you LOOK completely calm and collected and you handled them really well..."

and I'll say, "But I thought I really lost it with Dragon C. I rose to the bait and argued with him about x, y, and z."

And they'll get all wide-eyed, "But Dragon C was utterly unreasonable and I thought you did great getting what he really needed out of him and following up."

And I'll blink, "But... uhm... oh." Silence for a bit, "Thank you for the feedback, it's good for me to know when I did well."

"You did great."

I'm STILL terrified, but I did great.

Life is weird, sometimes...

Comments

[diony.livejournal.com]

Life *is*. It's so interesting to me, the different ways people think about fear, and how many people learn early on that if they're afraid, they're going to fail... I think one of the things that a lot of my students learn, almost accidentally, is that one can succeed with fear, not even in spite of it, but with it right there all the way.

It was so good seeing you yesterday!

[liralen.livejournal.com]

Yeah! It was great seeing you yesterday!!

Yes. It is interesting. Being afraid of something pre-supposing failure and disaster if they try anyway... fear as a... hm... cutting off of options.

I could see why learning the opposite would be very good for your students. Yay!

[diony.livejournal.com]

It's this idea that fear is a signal that you're not ready or not capable or not competent or something, which isn't true at all.