So you have a goal in life, a mission, and a strategy. Then you execute it and sail toward complete success. Right? Probably not. At some point stress, exhaustion, and even burnout can bring your project down. But, you can reel it in. Hillary Rettig argues that what prevents ambitious and idealistic people from achieving their goals are fears not of failure, but of success and change, which can lead to procrastination and life compromises. Read her solutions to these common problems.
The Little Guide to Beating Procrastination, Perfectionism, and Blocks: A Manual for Artists, Activists, Entrepreneurs, Academics, and Other Ambitious Dreamers (Book Excerpt)
HILLARY RETTIG
JULY/AUGUST 2009 CONDUCIVE
Introduction to Fear and Fear of Change
“Our bravest organizers . . . plunged into darkness not because it was stylish or because they were proud possessors of a theory that assured them that they were destined to win, but because they decided to overcome fear, period.” – Todd Gitlin, Letters to a Young Activist
Fear, in itself, is not a bad thing – it can help keep us out of trouble. Just as it was in our remote ancestors’ interest to be scared of terrain likely to harbor predators, it is in our interest to be scared of certain risky situations.
The problem is when our fears are excessive, irrational, or otherwise an impediment to our growth and success – or, when we respond to fear in a suboptimal way such as procrastinating. Fear is one of the strongest emotions: scientists even believe that there is a kind of early warning system in the amygdala (the part of the brain that governs emotion) that allows us to experience fear before we’ve consciously become aware of the thing we are afraid of. It makes sense: if you’re about to be attacked, it is a good idea to feel fear, and react to that fear, as quickly as possible.
This early warning system may be the reason fear is such a difficult problem to overcome, and why it can be so disabling. It is hard to do anything when you’re afraid other than to try to escape the thing that is frightening you.
If you have tried repeatedly and without success to break your procrastination habit then there is a good chance that fear lies at the heart of your failure. Furthermore, you are unlikely to make much progress unless you first deal with your fear. The good news is that, once you do that, progress can happen very quickly!
Fear of Change
A key difference between successful and unsuccessful people is that successful people initiate and control more of the changes in their lives. They decide where they want to be today, this week, this month, next year, ten years from now, and thirty years from now, and take actions designed to achieve that result. Unsuccessful people tend to be more passive: they take what life, and other people, hand them, and consequently often lead unhappy, embittered lives.
Of course, someone who is afraid of change is going to have a harder time initiating and controlling it. That person may be a super-cautious or even pessimistic, a “devil you know is better than the devil you don’t,” “don’t fix it if it ain’t broke,” “leave well enough alone,” “let sleeping dogs lie” kind of person. Moreover, s/he may have perfectly good reasons for that mindset: people from troubled or deprived backgrounds, for instance, often learn these kinds of lessons. But it is not a mindset likely to lead to success in any ambitious endeavor.
Fear of Success
Fear of failure is an intuitive concept – no one likes to fail. But what about fear of success? How could anyone be afraid of success?
Consider this: failure, at least, usually has the virtue of leaving us in the same place where we started out. Success, in contrast, takes us to someplace new and unknown. And that is scary.
Moreover, the new place is likely to be busier, trickier, more difficult, more confusing and less comfortable than the place we left behind:
*Finish your thesis and you will have to experience the judgment of your committee, not to mention the vagaries of the academic job market.
*Run a successful activist campaign and you’ll wind up with more work to do. As Saul Alinsky writes in Rules for Radicals, “In the world as it is, the solution of each problem inevitably creates a new one.”
*Get a new job and you’ll have to master a whole new set of relationships, information, and skills.
*Get a new relationship and you put your heart on the line.
Success also always comes coupled with a new possibility of failure. There’s no guarantee, after all, that you’ll prevail at your new challenges; and you could fall flat on your face.
Success also puts you in the line of fire. Artists and academics both have to endure their work being judged by experts and, sometimes, the wider community. And an activist who succeeds at a campaign is likely to become a target for the opposition.
Finally, and perhaps hardest to take, is that your success may spark resentment and even hostility from family and friends who don’t support your goals, or who remain stuck in their own ruts. Don’t underestimate this: rejection by, and alienation from, loved ones is a common, and often very hurtful, consequence of success. Success, in other words, is stressful, and sometimes greatly so. Children raised with kindness and insight become resilient adults who can manage this stress, but many of us were not treated so kindly by parents or others, and cannot. And so, we don’t even attempt to succeed. If success is so risky and stressful, why even bother going for it? In On Becoming a Novelist, John Gardner says: “Nothing is harder than being a true novelist, unless that is all one wants to be, in which case, though becoming a true novelist is hard, everything else is harder.” The same is true for all the other types of ambitious dreamers.
If success is so risky and stressful, why even bother going for it?
On a more prosaic level, success usually brings monetary rewards – even for activists, who may finally have a shot at getting a coveted full-time job in their movement. Then there are the social and spiritual benefits of success: one of the best situations anyone can find themselves in is as part of a community of successful ambitious dreamers. So, while your new successful life may be busier and more stressful than your old one, it will also be richer (in every sense), more interesting, and more fulfilling. Your new friends and colleagues will not only support you through the stressful times, but encourage you along to even greater heights of success and happiness.
Don’t Compound Fear With Shame
In my experience, many people, and especially many men, are ashamed of their fears. They see them as disgraceful and a sign of weakness.
I disagree. As humans, we are subject to death, disease, disappointment, loss, heartbreak, natural disaster and human-made disaster, among many other afflictions. Fear is, in my view, an entirely reasonable response to this reality.
Then there are the many hardships, risks, and rejections of the ambitious life, whether it involves art, academics, activism, entrepreneurship, or some other goal. These hardships and risks give you even more reason to be afraid.
In other words, to paraphrase the old activist quip about outrage, “If you’re not afraid, then you haven’t been paying attention.”
So stop blaming yourself for your fears and start asking yourself this question instead: How should I respond to my fears?
So stop blaming yourself for your fears and start asking yourself this question instead: How should I respond to my fears?
Steven Pressfield tells how the late actor Henry Fonda suffered from extreme stage fright throughout his long career. In fact, he got so nervous before every stage performance and film shoot that he threw up. That’s forty years of throwing up.
And after every episode of throwing up, he proceeded to give his performance.
That’s how to respond to fear: not by letting it paralyze you, and not by wasting time blaming yourself for it, but by doing your work and making progress toward your goals.
Beware of Myths that Promote and Excuse Failure
Another set of barriers that ambitious dreamers face are the many condescending and undermining myths that promote and excuse their dysfunction and unhappiness. Artists, for instance, frequently hear messages such as these, both from their “enemies” and “supporters”:
“One must suffer to be a great artist: if you’re happy, you must be a shallow or uncommitted person.”
“Poverty is a sign of virtue and commitment to one’s art: earning money is selling out.” And,
“Art is okay when you’re young, but when are you going to get a real job?”
Activists hear similarly destructive messages:
“You can’t have a personal life – there’s too much work to be done.”
“If you’re happy, you must be a shallow, uncommitted person. How you can be happy with so much suffering in the world?”
“Poverty is a sign of virtue and commitment to one’s cause: earning money is selling out.” And,
“Activists are naïve dreamers. Activism is something you grow out of.”
Entrepreneurs have it somewhat easier, since our society at least pretends to celebrate entrepreneurship. What it typically celebrates, however, is a shallow, idealized, glamorized vision of it that has little to do with reality. Often, the media play up the easy or spectacular “overnight successes” or “rags to riches” stories that are far from the norm. The media also tends to downplay struggles or failures except when those can be used to provide glamorous contrast to a spectacular success, and to deemphasize the role of luck in business success.
Academics typically don’t suffer from the same sorts of damaging myths as artists, activists, and entrepreneurs, in my experience, although they do suffer from a general disdain for academic achievement in this country. It can be hard to persevere in the face of such disdain, particularly when members of your family share it. Beyond that, many academics suffer from inadequate mentoring, especially during the thesis-writing process.
Finally, a problem that afflicts all categories of ambitious dreamers is our society’s promotion of the myth of the solitary, usually emotionally-tortured, achiever/creator. That can reinforce an unhealthy and anti-productive tendency toward isolation.
“Selling Out” and “Stalling Out”
Selling out is when you sacrifice your ambitious dream for other dreams or activities, e.g., making money, raising a family, or doing work you don’t believe in. You can also, of course, sacrifice your dream for less worthy aims, such as compulsive housekeeping, television watching, Web surfing, or partying.
I don’t really like to use the term “selling out” because it is often used to negatively label people who are simply doing their best to make difficult life choices. But we can also apply it non-pejoratively to those who wind up over-compromising and ditching too much of their dream. Many people make that mistake because they fall into the trap of thinking there’s only one path to their goals – often the unrealistic path portrayed in the media – and then, when they are having trouble succeeding via that path, they abandon their dream. In reality, however, there are usually several (at least) paths to success:
*An artist who must work at a full-time day job, for instance, can often arrange flextime (e.g, a 4 day/10 hour workweek) so that she can devote more quality time to her art. Or, she can free some time for herself by either getting her family to do more of the chores, or hiring outside help. Or, she can hire a part-time assistant to help with arts-related chores like preparing canvases or cleaning the brushes. (If she’s broke, she can teach in exchange for those services.)
*An activist who lacks the money for a big campaign can get people to donate money and services, or use low-cost, guerrilla marketing-type techniques.
*A businessperson whose dream is opening a restaurant, but who lacks the money to do so, can start a catering or packaged foods business first.
Few people can survive, much less thrive and achieve an ambitious goal, in the context of such a deprived and lonely existence
Most people do not like to compromise on their paths, but it’s better to compromise than to ditch your dream entirely. Besides, each of these compromises, and perhaps every compromise you might be called on to make, has a terrific silver lining. The artist who asks her boss for flextime discovers that she has more control over her schedule than she thought she had. The activist, forced to fundraise, finds out that there are indeed people out there who are willing to fund the cause. The businessperson gains valuable experience in a food-related industry while building capital.
There’s always more than one path to success, and even a compromise path offers considerable joy and fulfillment. If you can’t find one that works for you, given your financial, familial, or other constraints, consult a mentor.
Stalling out is the opposite of selling out: it’s when you sacrifice everything else in your life for your ambitious dream. Basically, your interests narrow and narrow, and your relationships become more and more limited, until you’re doing little other than your work – except that, since this strategy is based on deprivation and denial, you’re probably miserable and not doing much work, either. Naturally, this dysfunctional path is also celebrated in numerous “tortured artist” and “monomaniacal entrepreneur” stories, but it’s no less realistic for all that. Few people can survive, much less thrive and achieve an ambitious goal, in the context of such a deprived and lonely existence. And to the extent that your goal requires fresh ideas and insights, you will probably be lacking those, too.
The Cure
instead of selecting a compromise path that you can follow, ask yourself whether fear might be at the heart of your stubbornness
The “cure” for both selling out and stalling out is, first, not to shame, blame, guilt, or otherwise abuse yourself for doing so. (In other words, no mean mommy/daddy!) Often, fear – along with misinformation – is at the root of these strategies, and you should never respond to fear with punishment. Remember that there is no absolute right or wrong answer to the question of how you should live your life. Your ambitious dream could be the central, defining element of your life, or it could play a subordinate role to family or other values. Remember, also, that the foundation of all anti-procrastination efforts is honesty about who you are and what your values and needs are. Trying to live a “false” life – even with good motives – is simply not going to work, as most of us can’t endure a life lived in denial.
If you find yourself clinging to a dream of an idealized path that is impossible for you to follow, instead of selecting a compromise path that you can follow, ask yourself whether fear might be at the heart of your stubbornness.
To Download book for free, see Hillary Rettig’s web page http://lifelongactivist.com/
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