Why some people act, and other don’t? Why some people succeed and other don’t? Why some people sometime take risks and other don’t?
- Fear
- Lack of self-confidence
- Lack of knowledge
- Trying to do too much alone
- Trying to do too much
- Loss of self
- Lack of energy
- Lack of reward
- It can’t be done
I urge you to read the explanation of these 9 points on Dave Pollard’s article. It is all about life and understanding. It is to understand your reactions and the reactions of others in certain situations.
The most important point is the number one. Dave resumes it by writing:
Fear: We are legitimately afraid we will fail, or that we don’t have the needed skill, or that others will criticize us. We are afraid, most of all, of the consequences of failure — humiliation, ridicule, loss of financial or employment or social status. It isn’t risk we dislike, it’s failure.
I would add something to that description: the fear of passing by something that could bring you more joy, better life, more wealth. This situation arise when you have a choice to do in you life, any choice, professional or personal. You can gather all the knowledge you can put the hands on, you can make all the scenarios you want, spend years to analyze the situation and take your decision, and pass by anyway. The thing here is that you can’t choose the optimal choice each time you have a choice to make. The life is like this and only one certainty exist: we born to die. All the things between these two boundaries are totally uncertain and unpredictable.
You are on the principal road. Eventually you have an opportunity to turn right. What will you do? How to know if it is better to continue on the current road, safe but not necessarily optimal, and the new road, one that you have no knowledge on. You need to act, you need to make a choice, but which will you choose? The know or the new one? The first point of Dave will force, most of the time, people to continue on the main know road instead of choosing the new unknown path, in fear of failure: the failure of having make a non-optimal, less rewarding, choice. Sometime it could be the right thing to do, but have in mind that other time you also take that decision to do that instead of something you should do.
Technorati: fear | life | action | success | failure | fail | human |
nellie lide
August 28, 2005 — 4:02 pm
I think it’s not only fear of failure some of us have, it’s fear of success too. If you succeed, then where do you go from there. will people expect more from you. It’s the “can I keep this success up?” form of fear.
Fred
August 28, 2005 — 4:31 pm
Hi Nellie,
Completely right. Success could be another form of fear.
However, socially speaking, people like successful people. If you do something great, something successful, you will be seen as a winner, a hard worker and a good person. Even if you fail in the future, I think that people will remember you also for your success: “this guys created Product X, it have been an instant international success”, or ” That girl frequented Guy Y, she is such a Goddess”. This is the way, I think, the society reacts to success.
But you are right, on the personal plan, if you have a success, you will have the pressure to keep this success up, and if you fail, you will see yourself as a looser because you were not able to cope with that success. However, I think that any successful person had success and failure, think at Einstein or Steve Jobs. The question is: is success emerging from failure?
In a case or another, people could fear any one of these situation, because they fear the outcome and the impact of the outcome on their future life.
Thank for that comment,
Salutations,
Fred