Moment 20 - Jim Chapman on How He Overcame His Failure Anxiety

00:06what kind of dad do you want to become because you've got a kid on the way now congrats again yeah thanks um it's really hard to say this because i know that every first time prospective parent goes oh i'm gonna be the best dad and actually you know invariably we'll all fuck up at some point it's gonna happen um i just i think for me if i can have a child and if i can instill in them the waste of time in anxiety like that just the just the sheer nonsense of it like i i really want them to understand that worrying does nothing you know yes all right we can be stressed about things there are times when life is hard and things there's challenges to overcome but you overcome those challenges when they present themselves there's no my therapist once said to me when you worry you rob yourself twice right because the first time around you're overwhelmingly thinking about nothing but a potential problem which may never rear its head if it doesn't rear its head then you've wasted time worrying about it if it does rear its head then you're forced into action because you can't stay in that situation so why stress about something that's never gonna happen or you know something that you will solve if it does happen so i really

01:21want my child to understand just be content i think um and to know that both me and sarah and all of our families so my my siblings my mom sarah's siblings and her parents will always be there to help you know i think that if i can do that then i'll have done a good job um i also want to make sure i'm around enough my job totally allows that like i have time i can work as little for as much as I want. That's the beauty of my job. Obviously, I work less, I earn less, but you know, I can make those sacrifices. I don't at the moment. That's my problem. I work constantly because I like what I do. And because of the constant, it's anxiety. I'm constantly worried about if I take my foot off the gas, what happens next? I find that fascinating, but I picked up on that before we started recording. Right. Because every time we talked about your screenplays or other things you're working on, you would then end the sentence with, but I might lose it all.

02:18right and i i don't resonate like that i found that interesting because it's not how i end my sentences right but it was it was like you tell me something and then you would also then almost caveat it at the end with there is a chance i might not i might not get it or i might lose it all yeah and i i i find it particularly because i don't think in that way right so where does that come from in you this my mom right uh 100 again she's wonderful she has like a like an ethos it's not saying it's an ethos which is like a day doing nothing's a day wasted um she can't relax i can't relax as a consequence um if i'm sitting there just chilling even if i'm watching a film which for me i consider as research because i write films right if i'm watching something i'm like oh okay i see what they're doing there and it's like i don't watch them passively i'm constantly thinking about them um but even if i'm sitting there watching a film i'm like oh i shouldn't be doing it 9 p.m right it's the evening and i'm supposed to be relaxing and i'm sitting sitting there going i shouldn't be doing this i shouldn't be doing this that's my biggest what's your brain saying in that moment it's telling me off it's going dude you need to be you can't just

03:25be sitting here watching you need to be doing you need working and making what if this all goes wrong how are you going to earn the money how are you going to afford to look after your child and pay the mortgage and you know all that stuff a lot of people will resonate with that for sure and you've addressed it in therapy yeah what have you learned i learned that i do it which a lot of people don't even know right that self-awareness of knowing that it's a problem you have and and it's taken me i've been seeing uh my therapist for christ six seven years something like that how often uh it varies if i'm going through a moment then more often at the moment like once every six weeks because i'm pretty chill um but it's taken her most of our time together just to crack that and she sort of said you know with me it's my biggest um strength and also my biggest flaw it just depends on where it is on the dial like if i've got that at seven it's great because i'm motivated and i'm enjoying my work and i'm loving it and i'm sitting there god i'm really good at this you know and i'm typing away or doing whatever i'm doing if it's an eight or a nine it's torture paralyzed or yeah often paralyzed often paralyzed ironically into doing

04:37nothing because i'm so busy stressing about getting it done i don't get it done because i've got no brain space because it's too busy whizzing around in my head going get it done get it done get it done um so there's a point where it's sort of really um ironically kind of just it's the antithesis of what it's designed for yeah and i think i i think i'll get a lot of that from my dad because i remember being young knowing that it was easier to be busy and keep myself separate so i used to draw i'd be like this be really arty um and i just want things yeah i sit out of harm's way and i so you would draw in the corner because you felt safe if he if you were busy and he wasn't you know i wasn't in his in his eyeline i couldn't be chastised or it was safer the thing with my dad he was very unpredictable so which is terrifying for a kid right because you don't know if you're going to get love or you're going to get punishment for the same action. So I always spend most of my time just kind of getting on with stuff. And because of that, I've developed a real independence, a real creativity. But if it's turned up too high, it's crippling. Whereas if it's a good number, then it's what's got me to where I am. I 100%

05:49would not be here without that because I just wouldn't work as hard as I do. But I don't need to work as hard as I do. You know, human beings have a couple of things they need to do they need to sleep they need to eat they have the option of procreating that's kind of it right what else is there the rest of it is just made up right yeah the rest of it is just made up shit that we've given ourselves to do society has told us that in order to be a complete person we need to and it's climb right totally it's bloody stressful it's it's it's debilitating sometimes so when i have that turned up too high i end up doing nothing but i worry myself and sarah's like where have you gone like i just disappear and i don't talk i don't like i haven't been like this for a while because i'm pretty good at recognizing the signs and i know to take my foot off the gas a bit because of you know the therapy i've had but yeah it's the bloody worst what has helped you um therapy yeah it's absolutely that being aware of it there's a point i always say this because i've actually a couple of my best mates have i don't know a guy that's my age that doesn't need it by the way um so a couple of my best mates i've put them in touch with therapists

06:54or sort of said something you know i think you should see someone and actually we're really open and honest with each other we're constantly looking out if one of us is quiet on the group chat we'll go dude are you all right you've been a bit quiet um i said to him at the time i was like there's a really tough point with therapy where you start seeing someone at first you're really resistant you're like no i'm fine what are you talking about but when they point things out to you like shit i'm not fine but you're aware of doing it but you have no tools in place of how to stop doing it or how to at least challenge it so you're just punishing yourself for doing it like i remember going through that stage for a long time going i hate that i'm failing i hate that i'm still stressing out about being like working constantly or not working constantly or whatever it is i hate that i'm doing it to myself but i can't stop and you feel a bit like a junkie you know in a way that you're like you know it's wrong you know you shouldn't be doing it but you can't you can't not um and actually it takes a while to learn the techniques you know mine is as simple as it's it's it's painful that i have to go right stop just don't do it take a step away

07:59from your laptop step away from your camera do whatever it is you're doing have five minutes if you feel better after five minutes go back to it if not then take the rest of the day off um and that's what i have to do i need to be sarah needs to keep me in check quite a lot because if i sometimes it sneaks up on me and i'm kind of like at stage four before i even realized it i'm like shit i'm in too deep um so she's often like dude come back um and that's really helpful it's hard though because you don't want to be told by someone that you're not performing the way you should you know what i mean especially something that matters right right totally especially when it's your already your weakness um but you need to be like i actually really like criticism so it's good for me like you know if i send someone some work or something and they go oh okay as long as it's constructive you know they go okay i see what you're doing here don't like that that that's not great i thrive on that because i'm back in there and i'm you know so i think having other third parties be like you're not doing right right now um and that's something that i really want to be totally aware of when it comes to my child because i don't want to be an

09:08absent father i don't want to be a dad that's always going no no no i'm just not my lap so come back to me five minutes i want to be able to obviously i have to work you know we all have a living but i want to be able to have my kid with me and be present you know and not them think that they're sort of auxiliary or like an afterthought or just an addition i want them to know that they are the center of my universe Thank you.