I've been thinking about reinventing myself a lot for the past month. For the longest time, I've been a person who lets anxiety get in the way of what they want and lets past experience shy them from trying to do new things. For example, I lost my first girlfriend nearly a year ago, and for several months, I've been trying to improve myself, not for myself, but for her. She had to cut contact with me to tell me that I can't do that for her. She says that she has no hard feelings towards me, and that she's sorry that things couldn't work out, but because of that, I've been in a state of complete paranoia when it comes to girls since then. What if I'm not handsome enough? What if I'm too different for them? What if they judge me for what I'm into rather than who I am? What if I mess things up again? What if I keep making the same mistakes time and time again? I want to meet new girls and see which one I could spend a potential future with, because I have a good idea of what kind of girl I want to be with. The funny thing is, I always attract the same type of girl: Shy, doubtful, and has similar interests that I share.
The problem with me is that I handle failure terribly. Whenever I fail, I always blow it out of proportion and blame myself for everything, regardless of who's fault it was. I always tell myself that I "should have been better," or "I should have done this instead." It really hurts me because it makes me shy away from doing anything. I'm starting my Freshman year of college in a few weeks, and I know for a fact that I can't behave this way. When my first girlfriend left me, I blamed myself for everything, and the whole time I was improving myself, I was trying to show her that I was capable of changing and wanted a second chance. I later re-evaluated the relationship, and realized that she caused problems of her own (not being faithful, being "all talk but no action), and now I see her as more of a ***** than anything else. I know it's going to take a long time before I find someone who I can spend my life with, but I don't want to go through heartbreak 5, 10, 15, or even 20 times before I finally find "the one." Yet, that's how you know you've found the right person. Still, it's going to hurt knowing that I have to spend time with that many girls before one comes around that will take my heart and want to spend her life with me.
The way I'm going to reinvent myself isn't about changing who I am, but how I think. I often think too negatively about myself, doubting myself when I don't need to, and blaming myself for everything when I wasn't completely responsible for what happened. I always think I can't do anything and that I'm incompetent because I make mistakes that a lot of people make. You could say that I'm someone who wants to understand something as soon as possible and if I don't, then I failed. The odd thing is, I don't have that mindset when it comes to video games. Whenever I fail in a game, I take a minute to figure out what I did wrong and try finding new ways to beat a stage or a boss, or if I had something going, try being more careful the second, third, fourth, or how many times around it takes me. I don't dwell over my losses unless it took so much time to do and failing at the last possible second, causing me to feel demoralized and not try again. But that's because it's a video game. I know that I can try multiple times, and there's no shame in failing over and over again. In real life, that's not the case. There's far more "do or die" moments in real life, where you either succeed or fail. I know a common phrase that gets thrown around a lot regarding the topic of failure is "failure leads to success," and while that is true, there is just as much demoralization for failing. To me, there's two types of failure:
1. Not trying
2. Trying
If you don't try, of course you deserve to be demoralized for it. You didn't put in the time and effort to succeed, so why should you succeed? If you do try and still fail, it feels like an embarrassment. You put in as much effort as everyone else, yet you still failed whereas they passed. It feels like you're not worthy and stupid because you didn't succeed whereas they did. As someone who worries about how others perceive me, that is the ultimate demoralization for me, hence why I often panic and freakout when I fail. My parents have always told me that failing when putting the effort to pass means that there's nothing wrong with me, but it does feel that there is something wrong with me. Am I stupid? Did I just not understand like I thought I did? Is something wrong with me? This is the mindset I hate having, but has been integrated into my head because I let fear and failure get the better of me, thus causing me to not try again due to fear of failing again.
I want to change this way of thinking, especially since I'm heading to college, the start of the real world. I take therapy sessions, but he's often busy, meaning I can't have them weekly like I want them to. Does anyone have any advice on this? Anything is greatly appreciated.