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Why Your Fear of Failure Is Destroying Your Productivity
And what to do about it.
Last week, a long-standing suspicion finally solidified into a full-blown belief: I am terrified of failure.
There are no two ways about it. When I think that people are counting on me, I melt like butter. I crumble like high-quality pie crust. I break down like my Hyundai Elantra.
OK — maybe it’s not that bad. But, it’s definitely not good. When I think of the volume of work I produce regularly, it’s disappointingly small. Why is that? Because I’m scared to do certain tasks. Well, why is that? I think the logic of it is twisted and confused, but here goes nothing...
I put off tasks for a number of reasons — maybe I don’t know what to do, maybe they’re big and scary, or maybe they’re just not very exciting. But, whatever my reason for putting them off, I feel shame, guilt, embarrassment, and frustration for having procrastinated in the first place. I imagine what my co-workers would think of me if they knew this “awful” truth. So, I push the work under the proverbial rug and hope everyone forgets about it, including me.
Unfortunately, this never works. Procrastinating does, however, succeed in making me feel like a failure. When these tasks come roaring back into my mind, I immediately feel beaten and…
