Total Fear of Screwing Up (FOSU)
You may have heard the colloquialism FOMO (fear of missing out). Well this is not quite the same as FOMO, but rather FOSU – Fear Of Screwing Up. Maybe I should take a lesson from FOMO because what I do is exactly in contrast of it.
I have a habit of not wanting to show on Sundays, or at least the last Sunday of a show circuit… am I alone in that?
If I have a great show I don’t want to screw up and negate the progress we have made to this point, or worse to end on a bad note. Sometimes it makes sense to end early, if we have really worked through something and I feel we have accomplished something important or we had to adjust the schedule to jump an extra class because one day didn’t go as planned. But even in both of these scenarios there is an element to the sport that says we should go ‘do the thing’, as it were, and finish what we came here to do.
I guess also that can depend on what your goal is. But what if that show as a whole is the goal? For example last year at the ‘Masters’ tournament, my big goal for the whole year was simply to compete there. The first day was brilliant – exactly what you would want as a first day. Day 2? Less so: my nerves got a little intense but finished up well. So I reasoned, “Good for me, lets end there”, and after many conversations with Alex he convinced me I should go on Sunday.
We did and it was probably the best round of the year from a few perspectives and I felt so accomplished in the end. Of course this could have gone another way, but the point was we had been working all year to this point we were prepared and it was within both of our capabilities, so GO!
I’m not saying that this is what anybody else needs to embody it’s just one of my strategies for this new year to not let FOSU stop me. I will let legitimate reasons dictate my show schedule, but I’ll have to make a conscious effort to look at why we make the decisions we do.
