Embarrassment Is Probably Ruining Your Life More Than Failure Ever Will.

A lot of people are not afraid of failing. They are afraid of being seen failing.

I remember how strangely exposed I felt during my 100-day writing challenge.

Every single day, I had to send my articles out through WhatsApp broadcast messages. And no matter how much I believed in my writing internally, there was always a small moment of hesitation before pressing send. Some days, the embarrassment felt irrationally intense. I would start wondering if people found me annoying. Pretentious. Cringe. There were days an article would receive barely any engagement and I would sit there feeling foolish for trying so publicly, for wanting something so visibly, for putting parts of myself out into the world only for them to seemingly disappear quietly into the internet.

And honestly, I think that feeling shapes far more human behaviour than people realize.

A few days ago, while revisiting an old episode of I Said What I Said, I found myself thinking deeply about embarrassment and how much of human behaviour is shaped by the fear of being perceived imperfectly. One thing I genuinely enjoy about the podcast is how effortlessly the conversations move between being unserious, whimsical, emotionally intelligent, and deeply observant all at once. One minute everybody is joking and the next minute they are accidentally unpacking adulthood, shame, ambition, identity, or vulnerability in ways that quietly stay with you long after the episode ends.

This particular episode, “The Secrets, Lies and Embarrassment Episode” featuring Fisayo Longe, sent me into a spiral about embarrassment and how deeply it shapes people’s lives.

Because people talk about fear constantly. Fear of failure. Fear of rejection. Fear of uncertainty. But I do not think enough people talk about the fear underneath all those fears: the fear of being perceived struggling. The fear of looking foolish publicly. The fear of trying sincerely at something and not being immediately good at it.

And if you think about it carefully, you will realize how many lives are being quietly reduced by this fear every single day.

A shocking number of people are not avoiding failure. They are avoiding embarrassment.

There is a difference.

Failure can happen privately. Embarrassment usually requires witnesses. That is why it terrifies people so deeply. You can literally watch people shrink themselves in real time to avoid feeling exposed. They stay inside personalities they have outgrown because reinvention feels embarrassing. They avoid opportunities they desperately want because being visibly inexperienced feels humiliating. They silence themselves in rooms they deserve to speak in because they are terrified of sounding unintelligent.

And honestly, I think social media has made this worse. Everybody wants the final product now. Nobody wants to witness the awkward middle. The terrible first drafts. The cringe edits. The shaky beginnings where ambition is still larger than ability.

But that phase is where most real growth actually happens.

The more I sat with the idea of embarrassment, the more I realized it often lives in the space between ambition and ability. Between who you are now and who you are still becoming.

The awkward first public speaking attempt. The badly edited videos. The first podcast episode nobody listened to. The first article that barely made sense. The first attempt at becoming the version of yourself you eventually want to become.

Embarrassment lives inside all of it.

And perhaps that is why so many people avoid growth altogether. Because transformation is humiliating initially. Nobody talks enough about how uncomfortable becoming can feel while it is still in progress. People think growth should look graceful, but real transformation is often awkward. You stumble publicly. You contradict yourself. You become visible before you become excellent.

I think many people spend an alarming amount of energy trying to avoid looking human in front of other people.

But human beings were never designed to move through life like perfectly programmed machines. We were made to blush, stutter, misread situations, say the wrong thing sometimes, laugh too loudly, try, fail, recover, and continue existing anyway.

And honestly, feeling embarrassed is probably more of a blessing than people realize.

Because worst-case scenario, people laugh.

Best-case scenario, people laugh too.

One becomes humiliation only if you decide your worth cannot survive being imperfect publicly.

There is something psychologists call the Spotlight effect, which basically explains that human beings dramatically overestimate how much people notice and remember their mistakes. In reality, most people are too consumed with themselves to think about your embarrassing moment nearly as long as you think they are.

And honestly, that realization feels freeing.

Because if everybody is already busy worrying about themselves, then perhaps you are allowed to live a little more loudly too. Perhaps you are allowed to be visibly bad at things before becoming good at them. Perhaps you are allowed to outgrow yourself publicly instead of waiting until you become flawless to begin.

A life with no awkwardness, vulnerability, visible effort, or emotional risk usually becomes a very small life. You stop expressing yourself honestly. You stop reaching for things larger than your comfort zone. You become predictable because predictability feels safer than exposure.

And slowly, without realizing it, you begin mistaking self-protection for self-respect.

But they are not always the same thing.

Sometimes self-protection is simply fear wearing sophistication.

And honestly, I think more people need to understand that embarrassment is not always proof that something has gone wrong. Sometimes it simply means visibility touched something vulnerable inside you. Sometimes the blush is evidence that you are expanding. Sometimes awkwardness is proof that you are participating in your own life instead of permanently observing it from a safe distance.

Because everybody you admire has embarrassed themselves before. Every confident person was once awkward publicly. Every skilled person was once inexperienced visibly. Every interesting life usually contains a long history of cringe, uncertainty, failed attempts, reinvention, and deeply uncomfortable beginnings.

The difference is that some people eventually decide embarrassment is a price they are willing to pay for a larger life.

And perhaps that is the real challenge.

Not avoiding embarrassment entirely, but learning how to survive being seen imperfectly without allowing that moment to determine how much of life you are willing to enter afterward.