English as a Second Language

How to overcome the fear of making mistakes with your writing

As some particularities of my writing may suggest, I’m not an English native speaker.

I’ve mentioned it before that this has always been a barrier for me.

My problem was not really the difficulty in expressing myself, because I can speak and write clearly, after all, I had English classes throughout most of my years in school and college, and even within my work context.

Additionally, most of the TV shows and movies that I watched my entire life were in English, as well as the music I listen to and the books and other written content I read, so the English language was always very present in my life.

What I used to struggle with, and still do to a certain extent, was the fear of making mistakes on grammar or syntax, or being wrong about the real meaning of a certain word.

This kind of mistakes shouldn’t restrain anyone from writing, as I’ve seen many English-native writers making all kind of typos and grammar mistakes and still doing a good job because, at its core, writing is all about passing a message, and as long as the noise is not deafening, i.e. the mistakes aren’t blocking the passage of the message, it’s all good.

Knowing that should make me feel much more comfortable when sharing my work, but I’m very picky when it comes to grammar and syntax while writing in my first language, I’m that annoying guy that will look (and usually find) the tiniest typo on any text and tell you about it.

This tendency of mine is almost an OCD, and taking the leap from my comfort zone (my 99.9 % accurate first language) to uncertain ground (English) was always hard for me.

The fear of making mistakes, of being mocked or discredited.

There was always a voice in my head saying that anyone could refute what I wrote and it would be fine because that would ultimately be a matter of personal opinion…

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