The flip side of the fear of failure is the fear of success, and it’s possible to unconsciously handicap ourselves with excuses, diversions, or procrastination.
A recent post in PsyBlog discussed a common fear of failure comes from partly because we don’t want to look bad in front of others but also about how we see ourselves. We are afraid to fail because it damages our view of ourselves, our self-esteem.
To protect our self-esteem, psychologists have found that people use all sorts of self-handicapping strategies (from McCrea, 2008):
- Not trying very hard.
- Procrastination.
- Listening to music or using another type of distraction.
- Drinking alcohol and taking drugs.
Sounds like an opportunity to make a metashift, right? Our strategies can help you work on overcoming these distracting strategies and get to the core of the problem. Watch our blog at www.metashifts.com for more information.
See the original post at PsyBlog.