453. Coaching Hotline: Making Mistakes at Work & Coping with Stress
UnF*ck Your Brain: Feminist Self-Help for Everyone
Kara Loewentheil
4.6 • 5.5K Ratings
🗓️ 30 December 2025
⏱️ 12 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Do you ever find yourself paralyzed by the fear of making a mistake at work, no matter how small? In this Coaching Hotline episode, I’m answering two listener questions that dive into how we handle fear, stress, and the pressure to be perfect.
The first question is from someone working in a high-stakes field, terrified of making mistakes and facing professional consequences. The second question is about dealing with stress-induced habits like overeating or drinking, and the guilt that follows. I show you why you can’t solve the problem by just focusing on behavior... it’s your thoughts and emotions that need attention.
Submit your own question here and it might get answered on a future episode: unfuckyourbrain.com/coachinghotline
Get full show notes, transcript, and more information here: schoolofnewfeministthought.com/453
Follow along on Instagram: instagram.com/karaloewentheil/
Mentioned in this episode:
Are You Ready to Live A Confident Life?
Join me for my brand new program, A Confident Life, January 12 – December 8, 2026. Over the course of a year working with me and other smart dynamic women, you will learn how to deploy the four skills of confidence to create any outcome you want in your life.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to unfuck your brain. I'm your host Kara Lowentile, master-certified coach, and founder of the School of New Feminist Thought. I'm here to help you turn down your anxiety, turn up your confidence, and create a life on your own terms, one that you're truly excited to live. |
| 0:21.3 | Let's go. |
| 0:24.8 | Welcome to this week's coaching hotline episode where I answer real questions from real listeners |
| 0:31.2 | and coach you from afar. |
| 0:33.6 | If you want to submit your question for consideration, go to unfuck your brain.com forward slash |
| 0:39.5 | coaching hotline, all one word, or text your email to plus one 347-997-1784. |
| 0:48.0 | And when you get prompted for the code word, it's coaching hotline, all one word. |
| 0:52.6 | Let's get into this week's questions. |
| 0:55.3 | The first question is such a great question, I think, because this comes up a lot with people who have professions where there are very high standards and there's like a licensing authority and right. |
| 1:09.0 | So lawyers, doctors, even, you know, architects or nurses, like lots of authority and right so lawyers doctors even you know architects or nurses |
| 1:13.0 | like lots of professions right where you need to be licensed and if you make a mistake there couldn't be |
| 1:18.5 | professional consequences so question is i'm a graduate student going into a field that requires |
| 1:23.9 | clinical licensure i've heard horror stories of people making mistakes with billing |
| 1:28.0 | that ended up being accidental fraud and then going to jail, losing their license, and getting fined |
| 1:33.1 | hundreds of thousands of dollars. There are also horror stories regarding other people going to the |
| 1:37.6 | ethics board about other fellow clinicians in regards to how much they charge. Things like this make |
| 1:42.6 | terrified to graduate. I know I'm not perfect and |
| 1:44.9 | I make honest mistakes. This is why I didn't go into anything that requires precision and |
| 1:48.8 | perfection. How do I get over these fears? Okay, this is a great question. So the first thing to |
| 1:54.7 | remember is that your brain is not good at evaluating how likely extreme outcomes are to happen. So the studies show |
| 2:05.0 | something called a recency effect, which is, if you have heard about something more recently, |
| 2:10.8 | you are likely to vastly overestimate the statistical likelihood of it happening to you. So for instance, if people have heard about a |
... |
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