During the Christmas break I went bowling with my family and learned a lesson about conquering fear of failure.
Confession: I don’t know how to bowl. I do my best to keep the ball out of the gutter and aim it for the middle of the pins. If I get a strike, WOW! What a welcome surprise.
My son, who will say he doesn’t know how to bowl either, sort of, hit 7 strikes in one game. Whoa! I’ve seen this happen before. He has little experience bowling, and at times bowls about as poorly as I do. But then he gets into a zone with a spin he puts on the ball and fills his scorecard up with strike after strike. It’s quite impressive.
I decided that I needed to learn how to put spin on the ball to advance my game. The problem is, every time I’ve tried to spin the ball, I wham it into the gutter. So I quit trying and settled for my mediocre throws. But this time I decided it didn’t matter if I got 0 for the whole game. If I could learn to spin the ball, that was success.
I stepped up to the line and practiced my spin. It was a gutter ball. Yep. Then another, and another, but I didn’t care. I needed to learn the spin. The score wasn’t important during the learning process.
I did eventually succeed and start to knock pins down with a spin, and I was thrilled. Progress! But during this effort, I realized that they only way I could get myself to practice a spin ball was to not worry about the score—to not fear failure on the score chart. Up to this point fear of failure had prevented me from trying something new and progressive with my bowling game. It caused me to stagnate and plateau at a low level.
The same rule applies to many activities in life. If we are afraid of failure we fail to try something new. We stick with our comfortable ways and refuse to step out of our comfort zone, not realizing that refusing to progress, even if it looks bad at first, is an even worse failure.
This happens in prayer. Divine Science requires one to leave matter-thinking behind and go into the Mind of Christ where all is Spirit. To succeed, a thinker has to keep pushing the boundaries of his status quo thinking. He has to be willing to drop old matter-based ways of thinking and ascend in thought to pure Spirit. It can seem scary to the human mind to do this, because progress requires the human mind to let go of old material ways of thinking and dwell more on the things of Spirit.
Material conservatives balk at this demand because they fear failure. For instance, if the demand is to be patient and trust God more, they may refuse to trust, fearing that divine Mind won’t be there for them. They feel they have to do the job themselves—God or no God. They stick with their old ways of human willing an outcome and fail to progress in demonstrating the capacities of the greater of the one Mind. In concert with the genesis of this article they bowl a mediocre score because they haven’t learned “how to put spin on the ball.”
So, lose your fear of failure! You can trust God. God is there for you. God can do it better than you. Don’t let fear paralyze your activity and keep you from experiencing the very best. Learn how to “put spin on your ball,” and advance your game.
Evan, I can relate to this, and appreciate the encouragement and push. And the insight into that reluctance as a form of fear.
We are often tentative in releasing various forms of self will or self assertion because we identify so closely with them. It’s who we are… Letting go is scary. Will I become less than myself? I find it helpful to prepare for that release by pondering the fact that I can’t be self created out of nothing. I have a Creator, and He has it covered. I can’t lose my identity…. but I can find it. Like the Biblical “prodigal son” of Jesus’ parable, I (we) “can only come to (myself)”. In modern terms, it may be linked to discovering one’s talent, one’s inherent worth. So let go of self will.
Mary Baker Eddy’s striking image comes to mind (from Science and Health):
“We cannot fill vessels already full. They must first be emptied. Let us disrobe error. Then, when the winds of God blow, we shall not hug our tatters close about us.”
I like your points! Thanks for sharing.
To take the spin out of material thinking and turn it around to spiritual thinking, receptivity is greatly needed, for without it ,material thinking (spinning) will always be there. I speak solely from experience and deep study of the C/S Bible Lessons.
A social group to which I belong decided our night out would be bowling. I chose to watch, but the attendance was sparce, so my joke about Mom told me to keep out of the gutter didn’t work. But as you described, focusing on the activity and not worrying about the score provided more fun than I expected. The score wasn’t good, but being with good people and keeping my mind on Mind to guide me met my need. I got rid of my “should” which I have made a 13th commandment, Thou shalt not should on thyself, and just focused on good.
YES! This really makes sense and I want to thank you for sharing it, and thank Nancy for pointing out that reluctance and tentativeness is a form of fear, an error to be disrobed, uncovered and let go. Courage to go ahead and take that mile walk, knowing Spirit is my substance, comes from Love. This applies to many lovely breakthroughs in my activities these days, including even letting go of a seven-decades-old belief that “I can’t draw..” and allowing myself to decorate a beautiful Valentine. 🙂 Thanks so much. I’m going for the demonstrations of the divine unlimited.
i have been reading 10 pgs. a day of S&H – as you suggested in a lecture Evan – to just read the book!! Finding myself more filled with spiritual thoughts during the day, I do find myself at this impasse you write about, some fear about really changing & ‘trusting’. This post is very good for me today, – thank you!
Great one Evan. I agree with what Judith said about the word “should.” I have a friend who says, “Don’t should all over yourself.” Onward and upward.
This seems so simple, yet it is so deeply meaningful to me.
Thanks Evan. We all need a shake up to let go and TRUST! I work on this every day. Thanks again for making me think about things differently. I love your daily blog. It is very inspirational.
I am going to read this daily for the next 7 days. Maybe I’ll start spinning. Great ideas and thoughts . I want to ponder this much more. Face my fears.