What We Do With Fear
I’m trying to get my head around the psyche of successful people when they’re pursuing a specific, ambitious goal. Not specifically about the actual goal that is set, or the process of going after that goal (the breaking up of it into manageable chunks, the diligence to work on one bit at a time, the refinement and redirection as you learn from each specific execution, etc.). Rather, the mindset that these folks have as they work to get what they want.
As far as I’ve gathered, there seems to be two schools of thought.
One suggests that their mindset is fixed - it’s focused, ambitious, positive and never self-doubting. That they go after their goal and don’t question themselves for an instant - not at the outset, not during the process. Call this the Conventional view.
The other is that their mindset is, well, not quite so fixed. Yes, they have their goals and are intent and persistent in going after them, but they struggle with self-doubt at many points along the way. They battle imposter syndrome. They often question whether they are good enough. Call this the Real-World view.
The Conventional view is the one that’s often stuck in our heads. That’s the ideal we believe we need to measure up to. It’s probably what makes the expectation of achieving ambitious goals so distant (beyond the magnitude of the ambition itself). It’s why, when we don’t move forward or get what we want on our own goals, we think, well, those folks are special and you’re either born that way or you’re not.
I’m not so sure that’s how it works, though.
I think, at least from the bulk of what I’ve seen in others, is that the Real-World view prevails. That the personal struggles around self-doubt, the “Can I really get there?” and the “Is this biting off more than I can chew?” don’t go away. That these human struggles are as much a part of their psyche as they are of ours. That we are all driven by this type of fear.
The difference is what we do with it. How many of us move beyond that fear, use it to propel ourselves onwards. That we don’t let those fears make those little compromises, those small settlements that chip away at our ambitions and our goals and make sure we don’t appear too grandiose, or operating “above our station”, whatever that means.
I think, at some level, that we are all driven by positive ambition and fear. This is what it means to be human, and so we accept it and struggle through it, as opposed to expecting some sort of utopian mind state that likely doesn’t exist, not even in our most revered heroes.
In other words, we’re all very much the same - we are all driven and impacted by those fear. The difference is what we do with it.
