Expectations and the Fear of Not Being Good Enough

In a 2007 study of parental expectation, it was shown that 74.4% of foreign born parents expect their children to seek at least a bachelor’s degree (U.S. Department of Education). Particularly in international families, parents tend to have high hopes for their children. This can often be harmful for the children’s development due to the high amounts of pressure to succeed. Children often develop what is called atelophobia, or the fear of not being good enough or imperfect (Atelophobia Organization). Similar to people with OCD, as described in The Brain That Changes Itself, people with atelophobia have comparable troubles: “the more he thinks about his fear, however, the more he worries” (Doidge 165). Intrigued by this information, I shall be exploring the psychology of high expectations and the fear of not being good enough. Specifically, I intend to relate this to my own fears. In my experience dealing with this type of stress, I have found that my anxiety over the possibility of failure is amplified by the fact that I was diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) at the age of 5. By delving into the psychology of atelophobia and examining unique strategies for coping, I hope to implement a change in my own life. My end goal is to be able to lead a healthier life with less self-detriment and stress while coping with ADHD.
Born in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Catharina Reinholz Sabó, my great-grandmother, fled her country during World War One and went to São Paulo, Brazil. When she arrived, she had absolutely nothing: no home, no money, and no family. After years of being a domestic servant, she was able to invest all her savings to start what is now a multinational auto-parts company, all while raising three children. To this day, this company is the main source of my entire family’s income. Without my great-grandmother, I am not sure where my family would be today. Her story truly inspires me to work extremely hard, but at the same time, it frightens me. As the first member of my family to pursue higher education outside of Brazil after her immigration to Brazil, I am constantly perturbed by the thought of not having a successful future in the United States of America. Before departing to the airport, while saying my farewells, my family wished me the best of luck in my new endeavors. Even though it was intended as a positive gesture of kindness, this sort of message serves as a reminder of their high expectations of me. My family has set the bar very high and I feel obligated to reach and even surpass the level of success they have achieved in life.
With that understanding, I have come to NYU with the burden of expectations that I put on myself to live up to my family name. In my family’s eyes, I have already succeeded by being where I am now, but to me, success entails that I go above and beyond the performance of the average person my age. It may seem intense for a sophomore in college to have such high expectations for himself, but I have always been unsatisfied with blending into a crowd. As a result, throughout my life I have been fearful of not meeting expectations, both my own and others,’ which is why I am so critical of myself. Like Mr. L, from chapter 9, I find it extremely difficult to cope with my obsession, hence why I often suffer (Doidge).
As a result, there are instances in my life when it is extremely difficult to cope with or move on from failure, simply because I constantly worry about letting my family down. According to Norman Doidge, this would be similar to the idea of the OCD “emotional trigger;” anytime I associate success and my family, I am put into an unbreakable “brain lock” (165, 170). In other words, whenever I begin obsessing over my failures, my mental, emotional, and physical well-being are critically damaged. And with high stakes in college to get a good career, I have realized that this obsession is adding an unnecessary layer of stress that is limiting my full potential to succeed.
First of all, on the mental level, when I have this neurological obsession with success, I am fixated on my mistakes or what I could have done differently to do better. I have found that when I do this, my self-esteem and confidence lower drastically because I feel as if my efforts were all in vain. For example, even if I think that I have done poorly on a test, all of the time I put into studying and into preparing for the exam floods back to me. I am unable to surmount the self-detrimental thoughts that convince me that I wasted my time studying only to produce a subpar performance. Consequently, I begin to doubt my knowledge, abilities, and more importantly, myself. In my mind, I replay the same scene over and over again, asking myself why I let myself fail. I feel as if my mental capacity lowers to the point where I have no motivation to do anything but obsess over my failure. This causes enormous damage to my emotional and physical well-being.
Emotionally, when I am fixated on a disappointing experience, I have absolutely no desire to do anything else; I insist on perpetually assessing the unchangeable circumstances of my failure. “The more [I] focus on the content, the worse [my] condition becomes” (Doidge 171). Essentially, I lose control over my emotions. One moment, I am furious for failing, then, before I know it, I could be sad, hurt, disappointed, or jealous of others’ success. My emotional stability becomes so fragile that I end up believing that I am actually not smart, capable, or successful. My mind convinces me that any prior successes are merely coincidences, and all that remains is self-doubt. I notice that this emotional instability also has a major impact on my physical health. The consequences that my body feels as a result of my atelophobia go hand in hand with all of the suffering taking place in my head. As a result of all the stress that I am faced with, I sleep and eat less each day, which significantly increases my irritability, my heart beats at an extremely accelerated rate, and I cannot stop shaking during normal activities. It is evident that my body suffers each time I push myself harder to avoid failing again.
With this understanding of my fears and the self-detrimental effect that they have on my emotional and physical well-being, I now recognize the value of change. After research on atelophobia, anxiety, and stress, I discovered that some of the most effective strategies include changes to my mentality and how I approach the content that irritates me. As discussed in the Well-being and the Hedonic Tredmill lecture, self-esteem has one of the highest positive correlations with well-being, happiness, and life satisfaction (Schlechter). With that being said, improving my self-esteem would lead to ameliorations in my mental, emotional and physical health.
As mentioned in The Brain That Changes Itself, “neurons that fire apart wire apart” (Doidge 174). Essentially, one of the most effective ways to conquer your compulsion is to disassociate your thoughts from it. This form of psychotherapy is often referred to as Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT); studies have shown that CBT “rewires” your brain to “weaken the link between the compulsion and the idea” (Doidge 174). Instead of always revisiting the idea, I would train my brain to always associate a pleasant thought with success. Another extremely effective method is exposure therapy, where I would confront my fear head on. Just as Mr. L in chapter 9, I am frequently “haunted by [a] recurring dream of [my] trauma” because I never actually confronted the issue (Doidge 238). Exposure therapy enables you to open your mind to learn to accept the truth. In my case, the truth is that that failure happens and I should learn from that and move on. In this way, I would essentially be turning “ghosts into ancestors,” in the sense that our fears now are nothing but history (Doidge 243). Finally, the one method that I can practice without therapy is the imagination exercise. Based on studies of brain scans in the visual cortex, it can be said that thinking of something and physically doing that same thing require similar amounts of brain power (Doidge 202). With that being said, if I continually visualize myself coping with stress and failure better, then eventually I should begin to actually cope better. My life can benefit greatly from these mental exercises, which help me to deal with failure and stress better. Especially since my ADHD makes it harder for me to concentrate, having these brain exercises can open new doors for me. By applying these changes to my life, I can learn to manage my ADHD, stress, and failure without getting profoundly overwhelmed.
It is incredible to see how the brain is like a muscle: if trained in the correct ways, it can be a powerful tool for self-improvement. Not only can these therapies and exercises be applied to helping me resolve my issues with failure, but, as Doidge has demonstrated through his elaborate stories, they can also be used to improve several brain functions, such as memory, eloquence, and swiftness. Overall, the brain “survives in a changing world by changing itself” to better fit any situation (Doidge 26). Seeing as this is possible, I will be able to improve my lifestyle significantly with the aforementioned techniques and essentially “change” my brain.

Works Cited

Atelophobia Organization. "Atelophobia." Atelophobia. Amazon Services LLC, Dec. 2012. Web.
15 Oct. 2015. <http://atelophobia.org/>.
Doidge, Norman. The Brain That Changes Itself: Stories of Personal Triumph From the Frontiers of Brain Science. New York: Viking, 2007. Print.
Paquette, Vincent. "“Change the Mind and You Change the Brain”: Effects of Cognitive- behavioral Therapy on the Neural Correlates of Spider Phobia." Neuroimage 18.2 (2012):
401-09. Science Direct. Web. 15 Oct. 2015
Schlechter, A. (2015, September). Lecture presented in The Science of Happiness.
New York University, New York, NY.
U.S. Department of Education. "Parental Expectations for Their Children's Academic
Attainment." Child Trends. U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education
Statistics, 30 June 2012. Web. 15 Oct. 2015. <http://www.childtrends.org/?indicators=pare ntal-expectations-for-their-childrens-academic-attainment>.