Exorcising Fear of Failure

So, I'm working on a course of awareness training right now. I don't really want to say more about it than that right now, but I'm sure I'll be expanding on it in the weeks to come.

Right now I'm sitting in Espresso Royale trying to write my senior thesis, and I'm just as blocked as usual, except that because I've been sitting here trying to be aware of my thoughts and feelings and the reasons behind them I've suddenly realized WHAT is blocking me. Fear of failure. Fear that this thesis will be just terrible. And that fear is keeping me from getting started at all, which is entirely counterproductive. So, thanks to my new awareness training materials I now have a few resources to get past this, and I'm gonna try them out right here!

Step 1: Try to imagine the best possible result
The BEST thing that could happen is that I'll write this thesis, turn it in on time, feel totally proud of my work and confident that it is a good representation of me and my ideas, and have my professor give it an A.

Step 2: Try to imagine the worst possible result
The WORST thing that could happen is that I'll type up something that is too short, not up to snuff, I might not get it turned in on time, I'll feel that it's a terrible representation of my abilities, and my professor will give it an F, failing me for the course and keeping me from graduating on May 16th.

Step 3: Try to determine how the situation could be salvaged if you fail
If the worst possible situation does happen, I'll talk to my professor and either take an incomplete, go to work in Fergus Falls as planned while I re-write the paper and graduate at the end of summer, or get out of my job in Fergus to live at home and re-write it with the same result of end-of-summer graduation. Either way, life goes on and I graduate.

Step 4: Realize that in reality your situation will probably fall between the worst and best possibilities. Allow yourself the freedom to be imperfect.
Ok, I can do that. I can still aim high, but I need to be ok with writing something that isn't perfect. Working on that last bit.

Step 5: Breathe, and consider your problem a challenge that you are capable of overcoming
I am capable of writing a paper synthesizing information on what corn has done to rural America. I have the information, I have the ability to formulate sentences, I am passionate about changing the things that are detrimental so I have a drive to write. The only thing that is holding me back is the fear that I don't have ENOUGH of these things to be perfect. But I have SOME, and I just need to get those DOWN on paper!

"Do, or do not. There is no try," as Yoda would say. :-)

GO!