Zettel 202108150244 : Controlling negative emotions allows you to make better self improvement choices.

Emotions like fear and embarrassment can prevent you from taking calculated risks or exploring a new avenue of activities. Emotions like anger can cause you to make rash, costly decisions that later limit your options.

Tame these negative emotions and you can expand your world and possibilities. This makes me think of [Zettel 202108150309]. Often things we want to avoid are the actions that lead to our improvement. 

August 15, 2021

Zettel 202108130226 : Sometimes we procrastinate to protect ourselves from the fear of failure and underachievement.

Self Worth Theory states that we use procrastination as a way to protect our sense of self worth. We have a simplistic formula in our minds:

Performance = Ability = Worth

We act as if our abilities are static and can’t grow. Or as if our performance is always a perfect indication of our abilities. As a strategy to protect our worth, we may procrastinate. That way, we have an excuse if we fail. And we have a triumph story if we succeed. Because in the end, we have two warring motivations. We have the motivation to succeed. And we have the motivation to avoid the hurt should we fail. This fear of failure drives us to protect our sense of self worth with procrastination.

Maybe this contributes to perfectionism [ Zettel 202108130108 ]. And if we can learn to control our fears, [ Zettel 202108150244 ] we have a tool to help combat this problem.

Self Worth Theory: The Key to Understanding & Overcoming Procrastination, Nic Voge (2017) :

August 13, 2021 fear self worth theory procrastinate procrastination failure underachievement

Zettel 202108130108 : Don’t wait to perfectly understand a new skill before trying it.

That’s like expecting to get to the store without ever leaving the house.

It is impossible to get better and look good at the same time. Give yourself permission to be a beginner. By being willing to be a bad artist, you have a chance to be an artist, and perhaps, over time, a very good one.

Julia Cameron, The Artist’s Way

But the fear of failure [ Zettel 202108130226 ] keeps us from ever taking the risk.

I can’t find the source now, but I recall reading about a photography class. The teacher divided the class into two groups. The teacher gave the first group a whole semester to generate one high-quality photo. Then, the teacher instructed the second group to take as many photos as they could all semester.

The First Group

The first group studied and worked hard on generating one high-quality photo. They did OK for beginners. But . . .

The Second Group

The second group generated the highest-quality photos. They beat the first group.

Wait . . . what?

All that extra practice allowed the second group to grow and get better. Sure, their earliest photos sucked. But over time, the quality of their photos exceeded anything the first group produced. The first group never developed the skill to produce a high-quality photo. Toiling all semester over one high-quality photo didn’t give the expected benefit.

This also gives insight into why deliberate practice is so powerful [ Zettel 202108191615 ].

August 13, 2021