Joanna Gaines Revealed the Insecurity She Put Behind Her: ‘It Makes Me Sick to Think That’s How I Operated’
Joanna Gaines’ fear of failure is in the past now, according to the Fixer Upper star. She discussed how her past worries over perfection now make her “sick to think” about.
Joanna Gaines admitted that she used to have to be in control of everything
During a Nov. 8 interview on the Today show, Gaines discussed her new book, The Stories We Tell. Host Jenna Bush Hager noted that Gaines wrote about perfectionism and the “need to have control over everything,” wondering if she reached a “breaking point.”
Gaines explained, “I think as I was writing I realized how control and perfectionism showed up differently in different seasons. As I was writing, I realized, ‘Oh, when that creeps up in me, there’s an insecurity that’s still…the need to prove yourself.”
Gaines shared how she had those insecurities as a little girl. “And then at 44, I was like, the fact that sometimes I’m still driven by that means I haven’t really tackled this yet. So, for me, it was a deep-dive of getting there and at least identifying these things that are themes in my life that may never go away.”
She added, “But at least I know how to identify them and move past them.”
The ‘Fixer Upper’ star said she let ‘fear of failure’ rule her for too long
Gaines went on to discuss how she senses “a change” will come in her life, though she’s not sure what that is yet.
She explained that while writing the book, she asked herself, “What habits do I need to leave behind… what do I need to carry with me moving forward that has served me well?”
When Hager asked, “What have you left back?” Gaines said, “The fear of failure, the idea that I have to control – that everything has to be perfect.”
She added, “That’s not even possible. And I know that now. It makes me sick to think that that’s how I operated for so long.”
How Joanna Gaines overcame fear
in an essay for her Magnolia Journal magazine, titled “Free to Evolve,” Gaines shed light on her experience with fear.
“Because I was so afraid of messing up, I wasn’t willing to take a chance on myself. I feared failure in general, but this hit something deeper and more personal,” Gaines wrote. “There was this continual, underlying dread that any one of those decisions that I was trying to pull out of thin air could be the one that proved once and for all that I was no good at this work.”
Gaines had an eye-opening experience when she renovated her family’s farmhouse that freed her of the fear.
“Each home began to feel like a blank canvas where I wanted to create something specific to that place and time. Within the safety of those walls, I felt free to try different design elements to see what was a good fit for our family,” she wrote. “It was education by trial and error, and it was during this time that I fell in love with the process of design.”
She found a new perspective as a designer in the process. “It suddenly became fun, freeing even, when the goal wasn’t perfection but rather creating a place that represented everyone under our roof,” Gaines shared.
