10c. Fear of Making Mistakes at Work | Why Failure Feels So Heavy

Let’s Get Emotional With the Fear of Failure Part Three:

When Fear Learns to Wear a Suit

Hello you! I hope all is well in your corner of the world. Today’s topic is one that sits very close to my heart. It’s something I’ve been living alongside for many years (and still do, if I’m honest) it’s the fear of making mistakes at work.

So whether you’ve been reading along with this series so far, or you’ve found your way here via a good old google search, welcome 👋

If you often find yourself tossing and turning on a Sunday night before Monday rolls in, or carrying that sinking feeling that there’s a mistake waiting to happen at work. Well, this post may just be for you.

As always, get comfy and get cosy. Maybe grab your drink of choice and settle in as we calmly explore this whole thing together.

But before we do dive in, for those who prefer to live in the express lane of life, here’s a quick overview of what this post is all about. Or, as the tech world likes to call it, the too long, didn’t read box:

If you’re ready to dive straight in, I’ve linked to where this post truly begins here: 🌿 → click here to jump to – fear of failure in adulthood

But if you’d prefer a little more context, you’ll find the roadmap for the Fear of Failure mini series below, along with this post’s contents and a short reflection from part two.

Fear of Failure Series Roadmap

A Quick Peek at What’s Ahead:

Reflecting Back to Part Two

Fear of Making Mistakes

Welcome to Adulthood

Let’s begin by taking a moment to truly appreciate what an achievement it is to reach adulthood.

We’ve finally managed, navigated, and wobbled our way through the teenage years, making a fair few mistakes along the way. Ironic, given the topic we’re exploring.

Looking back, it often feels like a beautiful blend of tears and laughter, generously mixed with a triple shot of emotional anguish for good measure. Quite the experience.

Perhaps that’s why it’s so tempting to believe that once we reach adulthood, we’ve made it, that we’ve crossed some invisible finish line, finally armed with freedom, maturity and a little trusted emotional wisdom.

In some cases, that may be true. But for many (sadly), it’s not quite that simple.

Sure, you might now be able to watch a horror film without hiding behind a cushion (can you though 😉). And maybe you don’t need a night light to drift off to sleep anymore, although if you do, no judgement here. One of my long-standing fear companions is still a fear of the dark.

But the reality is, many of our fears, experiences and beliefs don’t get left behind in childhood. They don’t disappear, they relocate. They make the transition with us and just as we adapt to the responsibilities of adulthood, our fears adapt too.

Which begs the question, if our fears don’t disappear, where do they quietly resurface as we grow?

When Fear of Failure Finds a New Home

Same Fear, New Occupation

Our fear of failure doesn’t vanish, it matures and in many ways, that makes it harder to spot.

It becomes quieter, more complex and often more convincing. Shaping how we show up, what we attempt and how safe it feels to get things wrong in a world that seems to be always watching.

So whether you’re a fellow millennial like me, now closer to forty than I’d care to admit, or you’re one of the younger or older ones reading along, the truth remains the same: adulthood isn’t always what it’s cracked up to be.

It can be heavy and demanding. Weighted with responsibility and flavoured, rather beautifully and painfully, with plenty of ups and downs.

Which is to say, let’s not be too hard on ourselves.

As we explored in part two of this series, the handbook of life we were given in childhood, across family, school and culture, wasn’t always the clearest or kindest manual. So here we are, doing the best we can with what we’ve got.

(I’ve linked to part two here, just in case you need it 🌿 → What Causes Fear of Failure?)

So with that in mind, let’s take a breath and prepare to be a little honest with ourselves and with our fear of failure. And I’ll do my best to sprinkle in some humour along the way, for both of us, as we explore why getting things wrong can feel so much harder now that we’ve graduated to the school of work.

Fear of Making Mistakes at Work

Work is Our New Classroom

We’ve chosen our career path. We’ve managed the years of study or hands-on experience that came with it and now we’ve finally entered the workplace, perhaps carrying a rather hefty student loan with us. A lovely reminder of all the hard work (and expense) for the sheer pleasure of it all. Lucky us!

At first glance, it might feel a little odd, or even patronising, to suggest that our workplace is anything like school. But when we take a step back, maybe it’s actually the other way around.

School is, in many ways, the space that prepares us for working life. It introduces us to structure, assessment, expectations, authority and the idea that our efforts will be observed and evaluated. It gets us ready for the nine-to-five vibe. Not that I’m cynical of the education system or anything 🤫

Cynicism aside, this does all feel a little too familiar.

Performance, Evaluation & Being Measured

It’s KPIs Instead of Homework

Disclaimer: It goes without saying that all workplaces need their procedures, standards and safeguards. I’d even go as far as to say the endless workplace risk assessments are integral and vital, if a little overdone at times.

My point here isn’t to argue against the need for such structures. So if you’re an HR person reading this, please don’t come for me. Rather, I’m trying to highlight the way performance metrics and frameworks can quietly trigger our pre-existing fears and the beliefs sitting beneath them.

Because it’s here that many of us begin to feel the all-too-familiar rumblings of the school days. It can show up the moment we receive that calendar invite from our boss for our annual performance review.

You might notice a slight tension in the shoulders, a pause before opening it, or if you’re anything like me, a small surge of panic at the thought. Why? Well, more often than not, it’s the fear of being evaluated, of being seen as less than, of not quite being up to the task.

It’s fear of failure dressed up in some lovely KPIs (for those not in the know, because I surely wasn’t, this stands for Key Performance Indicators). Essentially, it’s the classroom echoes of:

“I need to get this right”

In many workplaces, that belief doesn’t disappear, it simply gets reframed as performance.

When Performance Shapes Fear of Making Mistakes at Work

Managed Growth

In theory, annual performance reviews are designed to support growth, progress and momentum and when they’re handled well, they genuinely can.

But when they miss the mark, carry added pressure, or become tied to financial incentives, growth can quietly turn into risk management.

We may find ourselves becoming hyper-vigilant about our performance, leaning on strategies we learned early on to minimise mistakes and stay safe. We may begin over-preparing, over-checking and over-owning responsibility.

Or, we may slide more to the reverse, feeling overwhelmed and stressed, slipping into avoidance, putting things off until the last minute as a kind of fail-safe, so mistakes can’t quite be acknowledged.

Both responses make sense. They’re protective. And they’re often learned long before we step foot into the office. Of course, mistakes are inevitable, both inside the workplace and beyond it and in some high-stakes professions, the consequences of errors can be serious.

But in my own experience, it’s often the unacknowledged smaller mistakes that quietly build into the bigger ones. So, when there’s space to notice minor wobbles as they happen and to learn from them in a safe environment, the likelihood of larger errors tends to shrink, not grow.

Because beneath the metrics, the frameworks and the well-intended reviews, fear often hears a much simpler message:

“Mistakes aren’t something to learn from, they’re something to avoid”

So, when growth becomes something to manage rather than explore, fear of failure can quietly settle into another familiar rule:

“Getting it right keeps me safe. Getting it wrong puts me at risk.“

Once performance becomes tied to safety, it doesn’t stop at what we do, it starts to shape how we believe we should be at work.

Fear of Making Mistakes and the Mask of Professionalism

Let’s All Be Professional About This

So, growth allows us to move up the workplace ladder and performance reviews often act as the gatekeepers. But progression isn’t the only thing the workplace asks of us.

Alongside results, there’s another quiet expectation, to be professional. At all times, preferably without mistake, yes, always.

Allow me a moment of honesty here, I tried to come up with a clever heading for this section, but my mind drew a blank. So, in a moment of brain freeze, I turned to Google for inspiration. Not my usual style but it happens to the best of us.

What I actually found wasn’t a professional pun (sadly), but a familiar pattern. I stumbled across so many quotes describing what being a professional is, all with slightly different takes but a similar flair.

Which in a nutshell is: get the job done regardless of how you feel, strive for excellence in all you do, preform and be accountable. Now while none of that is inherently wrong, I must say it carries quite a lot of weight on the individual carrying the label.

So much so, the words themselves feel almost painful to me because I’m a shy and sensitive soul at heart. I can literally feel the pressure of the expectation.

Yet, in its simplest sense, professional simply describes a role that requires training and a specialised skill set, which applies to most jobs in one way or another.

But somewhere along the way, the word began to mean more about the individual than the work itself.

It Became a Measure of Character

From Doing the Job to Being the Job

In modern working life, being “professional” often doesn’t just mean doing your job well. It quietly asks you to be composed, capable, reliable and close to perfect, even when you’re under pressure, uncertain, or human. This is where fear of failure finds a very clever hiding place, rooted nicely behind the mask of professionalism.

Because when our professionalism becomes tied to our personal worth, mistakes stop being part of the process and start feeling like personal shortcomings.

Fear adapts as a way to protect, encouraging us to over-perform, over-control and over-identify with our role as a way to stay safe.

So, what begins as a fear of getting something wrong can slowly shape an identity built around competence and excellence. One that quietly carries the belief:

“If my job defines my worth, then making a mistake doesn’t just undermine my work – it undermines me.”

And it’s at this point where fear can change shape.

Fear of Making Mistakes at Work Turns Inward

Work Starts to Feel Personal

It’s safe to say, workplace reviews, alongside the expectation to be “professional”, have become a defining part of modern working life.

Encouraged and maintained by the status quo. Creating a feedback loop that’s hard to step outside of. So, it makes perfect sense why we feel this pressure to preform.

Humans are wired to belong, to contribute and to be useful. Wanting to do well at work isn’t a flaw, it’s deeply human and it’s certainly not a sign of personal failing (pun intended).

We need purpose, momentum and a sense of direction in our lives. Our minds naturally seek meaning, connection and achievement, and for many of us, the workplace becomes one of the main places where those needs are met.

So of course work starts to feel personal.

And with that comes internal pressure and expectation, some of it healthy, some of it motivating. But our current systems don’t always strike the right balance.

We often tip from manageable levels of stress into something far more wearing, where the pressure stops helping and starts gripping. Somewhere in that shift, the line between what we do and who we are can begin to blur.

Roles & Identities

While I’ve resisted admitting this to myself in the past, our work does play a significant role in our identity. And that’s precisely why it can be so challenging to acknowledge how we really feel about it.

Admitting uncertainty, doubt, or fear can feel like a betrayal, of our role, our competence and by extension, ourselves.

This is why fear of failure can turn inward. Not because we’re deluded or dramatic, but because we’re trying to stay safe, we need to survive.

Not survival in the most dramatic sense but in the financial one. Food, rent, and bills aren’t optional. Our basic needs are tied to our income and without that security, we are genuinely at risk.

When we see this dynamic for what it is, it becomes easier to understand why work can leave us feeling almost powerless. Control feels limited, so we turn expectations inward in an attempt to regain some sense of safety.

We become our own toughest managers, policing ourselves in the hope of keeping the real ones satisfied, and ourselves protected.

So if you’ve ever replayed a last-minute email in your mind, checked it again on a Saturday morning mid-panic, or worried you sent the wrong version to the entire department, you’re not alone. I’ve done this more times than I can count.

Maybe you’ve stayed late to finish a project, worked weekends to keep on top of things, or said yes to extra responsibilities because letting the team down felt too risky.

Whatever mask your fear of failure wears, it isn’t a personal flaw. More often than not, it’s a sign of commitment, care, and a deeply human need to stay safe in a system that doesn’t always make that easy.

When we see how our professional life becomes part of our sense of self, it makes even more sense as to why we develop strategies to minimise the risk of things going wrong. From here it’s less about eliminating fear and more about learning how to hold it.

Living With Fear of Making Mistakes at Work

The Art is in the Balance

As the saying goes, every cloud has a silver lining and there is one here, even if it sometimes takes a little time to spot.

Setting my cynical mind aside for a moment (because let’s face it, she deserves a rest), while we may live within systems that aren’t always supportive or fair, we don’t have to become external trailblazers to begin creating change internally.

It would be unrealistic and honestly a little irresponsible, to suggest we simply opt out of the work system altogether. As most of us do live in the real world and enjoy the sense of purpose our work brings.

But there is room to shift how we relate to our work, so it serves us as much as possible, rather than quietly consuming us.

Because while our minds are doing their best to protect us, they’re often working from old scripts, beliefs shaped in childhood and reinforced at school, when control was limited and safety depended on getting things right. Those strategies once had a purpose and they helped us cope.

But the context has changed and so have we.

When we’re willing to pause and meet ourselves honestly, we can start to notice which mask our fear of failure is wearing and which belief or past experience it’s still trying to protect. Not to judge or dismantle it, but to update it and in that awareness, something subtle but important shifts.

Fear doesn’t disappear, but it loosens its grip. We’re no longer fighting it or obeying it blindly, we’re learning how to live alongside it, with a little more balance, choice and compassion.

Working With Fear of Failure at Work

Small Steps Forward

Now, I can hear what you’re thinking (don’t worry, I can’t really, my mind-reading skills are still a work in progress 😊).

“This is great and all, Charlotte… but how do I actually do this?!”

A fair question. You’re not alone, I’ve been asking myself the same thing and I’ll do my best to answer it.

First things first: you’ve made it this far. You’ve read the majority of this post and while I’d love to credit that solely to my beautiful words, flair for blogging, and undeniable wisdom (my ego does enjoy a little cuddle now and then). The truth is much simpler than that.

You’re here because you’re open to understanding yourself a little more. Now, it probably didn’t start that way. It rarely does but you stayed and that, in itself, is progress.

The thing about fear of failure is that it’s rarely obvious. It would be far easier if it knocked politely and said, “Oh hello there, it’s me fear of failure 👋”, but sadly, it doesn’t work like that.

Instead, fear tends to hide in habits, behaviours and automatic responses, especially at work. Things we do without thinking, ways we protect ourselves without realising we’re doing it. Almost as if we’re running on autopilot.

So perhaps the next step isn’t fixing anything at all but noticing. A simple question to sit with might be:

“What do I do at work that might be trying to prevent me from making a mistake?”

And from there:

What mask is your fear of failure wearing?

(I’ve linked to part one here where I explore the masks in lots of detail 🌿 → Fear of Failure | Signs, Examples & How to Spot It).

Because every habit and response carries a story, often a much older one than we realise.

What’s the Story?

Once we can see the mask (or masks) our fear of failure wears, we can slowly begin to wonder what story sits underneath it. Nothing deep, dramatic, or life-altering. No epiphanies or rebirths required.

It’s more of a calm check-in. Curious and almost child-like, because, in many ways, we’re listening to an earlier part of our human story. We might ask ourselves questions like:

“What does this behaviour seem to mean to me?”

“What is it protecting me from?”

“What does my fear predict will happen if I get this wrong?”

Often, the stories are surprisingly simple. Things like “mistakes aren’t safe,” “I need to prove myself,” or “being competent means I’ll be accepted.”

You don’t need to deep dive into the childhood archives and work out exactly where it came from. Simply noticing it is enough and it’s from here where we allow ourselves a little more space to work with fear, not against it.

Allow, Reassure & Re-Frame

When fear of failure, or any emotional fear, really shows up in my world, I try to remember three things. And in full honesty, I’ve used these very three steps while writing this post, probably more than once (who’s perfect 😉).

Allow

This one can sound a little controversial and perhaps even fear-inducing in itself but I really do mean it: allow the fear.

If you can, name it for what it is. Fear of failure. Not something to dismiss, push down, or escape from but something to sit with, just long enough for it to have somewhere to land.

Yes, this can feel uncomfortable. That’s part of why we avoid it. But when fear isn’t given any space, it tends to retreat back into the masks it knows best, perfectionism, avoidance, control.

Sometimes, simply letting yourself feel the discomfort, without trying to change it, is enough and when we allow fear, we create the space to reassure it.

Reassure

This part of us speaks from history, from a time when we were younger, more vulnerable and had far less control. And when a child feels scared, what they need most is reassurance. Reassurance tells both the mind and body: I’m safe.

This can be said in your mind, but I’ve found saying it out loud can help. Something as simple as:

“It’s okay. I’m safe.”

If it feels right, you might pair it with a self-soothing gesture, holding your own hand, placing a hand on your chest, gently rubbing your arms, or a slow breath or two. But nothing fancy is required, you’re simply reinforcing safety.

And from that place of reassurance, we naturally open ourselves to seeing things a little differently.

Re-Frame

This isn’t about denying the thoughts that arise, or forcing something more positive. We let the thoughts be there too. We notice them for what they are, protective strategies, doing their best to keep us safe and then, we offer another perspective. Not to replace the old one, but to sit alongside it.

Just as we reassured the younger part of us, we can also remind ourselves where we are now. That this moment is different, that we have more choice, more agency and more capacity than we once did.

The fear doesn’t need to disappear. It simply needs updating. And often, that small shift, from fighting fear to working with it, is enough to calm its grip. Not perfectly or consistently. But with a little more awareness and kindness than before.

Fear of Making Mistakes at Work, A Closing Note

Facing our fears, in any capacity, is no easy thing. It takes time, small steps and perhaps most importantly, a healthy dose of self-compassion.

If anything, this is less of a fix and more of a philosophy we can journey with. Not in a spiritual or esoteric sense, but in a grounded, human one. Because fear is inevitable, part and parcel of being human.

I share this not to discourage, but hopefully the opposite. Knowing this isn’t a one-time solution can feel uncomfortable at first, but over time it often eases the pressure we place on ourselves, not just around our current fears, but the ones still waiting in the wings.

So if you notice the fear, sit with it, and then catch yourself still overthinking the work email, or staying late in the hope of not dropping the ball, be kind to yourself. Acknowledge it and forgive yourself for that too.

Not to justify or avoid the behaviours we reach for, but to see them for what they are: coping mechanisms.

Because when we begin to befriend our fears through self-acceptance and forgiveness, when we allow ourselves the odd mistake or two, we’re showing our nervous system, our little me’s and even those around us that it’s okay.

And sometimes, those small wobbles are enough. They don’t spiral. The bigger ones don’t take root. We begin to model, within ourselves, the kind of workplace culture we hope might one day be reflected back to us. But if it isn’t, that’s okay too.

Because we know we can weather our mistakes. We fear them a little less, and in doing so, we learn to love ourselves a little more.

So it’s here that I’ll leave you and turn my attention to the next part of this fear of failure mini-series. Because it’s not just the workplace that triggers this fear, there’s another little rabbit hole I want to explore and that is social media. (Link will be here when it’s actually written, promise 😊)

In the meantime, be kind to yourself and know you’re doing the best you can, with what you have and I’m right there with you, doing the same.

I’ll see you soon,

Charlotte 🪷

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Fear of Making Mistakes at Work – FAQs

This next little section exists partly for SEO reasons – so people searching for things like fear of making mistakes at work can actually stumble across this post on Google. Not my favourite part of the modern day, but I’d rather be upfront about it.

That said, if you’ve scrolled this far, it may also serve as a gentle pause, a short recap of what we’ve explored together so far. And if it does, that feels like a quiet bonus to me.

If you’ve reached the end of this FAQ, well you are a dedicate soul – thank you 🫶

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