Introduction
“To understand how the brain constructs reality, it is important to shift from the confinements that cause fear of failure and look at the world from different perspectives." Fear of failure limits the way individuals become motivated to achieve their goals since the majority lack the desire to make bold decisions in academic, professional and other life experiences. According to Bain, there are three types of learners: those who do little to succeed in their education, those who are more interested in higher grades than the understanding of the curriculum contents and those who are driven by the need to gain a deeper understanding hence come out from college rich with education. Those who are interested in rich education get comfortable with failure such that they believe that it is not all times that one gets everything right. Their desire to achieve their goals is driven by the need to continue working hard without fear of the outcome of the task. Fear is a significant barrier to success since it creates roadblocks, doubts and ultimately leads to failure. However, fear can be conquered by making bold decisions and having intrinsic motivations driven by performance improvement. The essay argues on how comfort in failure eliminates fear among individuals and helps them become successful in the academic, professional and personal goals they set.
Success depends on one’s ability to make bold decisions
The success of an individual is highly dependent on their ability to make bold decisions and acknowledge the fact that such decisions are accompanied by inevitable challenges. Roadblocks could be transformed into success by challenging oneself and working with individuals who can contribute to the betterment of that individual's problem-solving skills and abilities.. Fear of failure affects academic and career lives such that it becomes extremely difficult to achieve long-term aspirations. Achieving success in life means being positive even when our models do not work and devising new approaches to building new models. Failure to derive comfort from fear limits individual’s ability to enhance greater creativity as a way of improving performance. Many students tend to be justified by the belief that they need the high grades to succeed in life hence are always worried when they do not live to their expectations. Students with fear tend to adopt learning as a way of proving superiority to others while neglecting to act in their best interest.
Fear interferes with individual’s ability to take bold actions to reach their goals such that many fail to have the continuous ambition to create new, realistic and challenging life targets. Success requires change, and such changes could be positive or negative hence the need for everyone to be prepared for failure or success. This way, individuals will be able to achieve long-term success in various aspects of life. While the negatives could overweigh the positives due to the challenges that arise as one pursues their goals, it is imperative that people learn how to run away from the tyranny of fear of failure and adopt proactive measures to guarantee success in their endeavors. Such actions call for the elimination of fear which makes individual capable of figuring out how to pay attention to different life perspectives and make bold decisions. Fear makes one focus more on the dark side of life such that their ambitions are derailed when there is a failure to deal with challenges.
Fear reinforces avoidance behavior in human beings such that individuals desert working on their goals because of the fear of success. The consequences of avoidance behavior are that it becomes difficult to gather sufficient courage and build new models regardless of how challenging they may be. Success depends on the courage and ability to make bold decisions in life hence individuals do not have to fear the risk of failure. Bold decisions make it easier to overcome challenges and cope with failure while pushing ourselves to continue striving for excellence in academics, professional life, relationship and the lifestyles adopted.
Self-motivation as the key to success
Fear interferes with self-motivation such that many people lack the driving force to pursue their goals to success. Students with fear of failure are more interested in achieving higher grades which limit their self-motivation and could go to the extent of indulging in some form of cheating for grades. The needs and desires of those with fear, therefore, interfere with when they place more focus on extrinsic motivators. Motivation defines the dynamics of the behavior of individuals in their education or career life with fear hindering their achievement of goals. Like the case of businesspeople, those with high motivation are likely to benefit in the long run in spite of the fact that they may encounter losses at the initial stages of their business. Fear of failure affects intrinsic motivation and attitudes to achieve which means that such students fail to adopt effective strategies to develop models that are crucial to making them successful. Intrinsic motivation makes one have the energy and enthusiasm to carry out particular tasks and look for ways to improve compared to extrinsic motivation where one only concentrates on the achievement of grades. Low esteem as well as failure to believe in one’s competence hinders commitment such that in the end, those with fear are less likely to be successful compared to those with enough brevity to encounter life challenges and the possibility of failure. For those engulfed by fear, they are keen to protect their ego since they are motivated by external factors such as the need to enhance their status or be recognized by their colleagues. Fear, therefore, limits an individual’s ability to perform highly when under pressure and can only perform when such pressure is eradicated.
The fact that fear instills some form of embarrassment in cases of failure means that one cannot indulge in activities with minimal chances of success.. Task motivation is crucial in making individuals successful in their education, career, relationships and lifestyles since it makes one develop a sound developmental approach to success. With a genuine passion for achievement, it is unlikely that intrinsically motivated people could fear the outcome of their actions. Their passion makes them less interested in results and the need to be recognized since they see success as doing their best and putting more efforts even when the outcome is negative. To those who are self-motivated, failure is non-existent, and every outcome is an opportunity to self-examine them and identify the key areas for improvement. Intrinsic motivation is therefore what pushes individuals to work hard while reducing the fear of failure and anxiety from the time they are from their childhood to the time they enter their professional journey. Success is directly related to intrinsic motivation where individuals are driven by the need to continue improving their performance and shift away from aspects such as the need to impress others or gain recognition which are common causes of fear of failure.
Conclusion
Fear is a significant barrier to success since it creates roadblocks, doubts and ultimately leads to failure. However, fear can be conquered by making bold decisions and having intrinsic motivations driven by performance improvement. Becoming successful entails learning from failure, setting goals and making them real while having the passion for pursuing even after failure. While the negatives could exceed the positives due to the challenges that arise when one pursues their goals, it is imperative that students learn to embrace the negatives and uproot them one by one. It is important to develop intrinsic motivation as the best approach to overcome the fear that makes people focus on the dark side of life. By shifting away from avoidance behavior caused by fear of failure, individuals are likely to make bold decisions that are important to long-term success in academics, career, and personal life.
Works Cited
Bain, Ken. What the Best College Students Do. Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2012. Document.
Brunstein, Joachim and Peter Gollwitzer. "Effects of Failure on Subsequent Performance: The Importance of Self-Defining Goals." Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (1996): 395-407. Document.
Zuckerman, Miron and Deborah Larrance. "Effects of Fear of Success on Intrinsic Motivation, Causal Attribution, and Choice Behavior." Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (1980): 503-513. Document.
