Free Yourself from Fears (14 page)

It seems that people with high maximization scores are less satisfied with life and are less happy and less optimistic than people with low maximization scores.

You can easily discover if you are a maximizer. Maximizers tend always to look for the best opportunities, no matter how good life is at the moment. They like to channel surf on the radio and television.

They tend to be perfectionists and hard to satisfy. They find it hard to shop for gifts, and also hard to shop for clothing for themselves, as they are always thinking that there could be something better in the next shop. They set high standards and do not easily settle for second best.

Is choice a bad thing? No. Up to a point it’s good, and then the psychological benefit tails off. Three choices seem to work well for most people. NLP got it right first time.

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Skill for freedom

Dealing with choice

When you want to buy something, narrow your choices to three as quickly as you can. Get help from a friend or someone who knows.You cannot know everything, but you can talk to someone who knows about whatever it is you’re buying.

When you make a decision, narrow the field to three options that are acceptable (again, seek expert help if you can).The one you choose does not have to be perfect. Good enough is good enough.

If you find yourself regretting your decision, focus on the good qualities of what you have chosen.There is no perfect choice that has everything; you would have some regret whatever you chose.

None of these things is bad—change, time pressure, information, choice, wanting a better future. How we deal with them makes the difference: they can enrich our lives or make us fearful. There is one more important social anxiety that merits a chapter of its own—pres-sure to achieve.

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The Pressure to Achieve:

The Price of Perfectionism

Have no fear of perfection—you'll never reach it.

SALVADOR DALI

WE LIVE IN A CULTURE OF ACHIEVEMENT. All cultures give some people higher status than others. Sometimes this status is
ascribed
, on the basis of education, age, class, or gender. You get status by being who you are; ascribed status does not need justification. In most of Europe and the United States, status is
achieved
. The more you accomplish, the more status you have. Because others tend to judge us on our achievements, we also tend to see ourselves in terms of what we achieve. Our self-image and self-esteem get linked to how successful we think we are, and how successful other people think we are.

Success is important. Failure can be humiliating. Failure means loss of status, so we are afraid of failing.

This can cause a lot of trouble. We are not defined by our achievements. We are defined by our
actions
.

There are many forces at work to make us feel that we are not good enough. Advertising is designed to make people feel insecure about everything—their achievements, weight, looks, and social status. The achievement culture encourages people to ask the question: “Am I good enough?” This question provokes anxiety. What if the answer is no? But it is the wrong question. The right question is: “Can I do this to the standard that will get what I want?”

The situation is made worse in a way by the number of self-help books (yes, I know, you are holding one), courses, coaching, and advice available. How can you possibly fail with all this help?

FREE YOURSELF FROM FEARS

Many people judge achievement by how rich you are. Money is taken as evidence for success. The richer you are, the more successful you are seen to be. This is a ridiculous way to judge success. Many people are very successful in their own field, which may not pay very much. Others do not care about money. And how do we judge who has money? Again, by appearances: big house, big car, expensive holidays. But appearance doesn’t say very much about how much money you have. It is possible to have everything financed by loans. Success is not merely about what other people see, but about what is important to you and how you see your achievements.

Self-sabotage

Being afraid of failure is not the same as wanting to succeed. When you want to succeed you focus on your goal. You do everything in your power to get your goal. You marshal your resources, make a clear action plan, and keep track of your progress. In the end, succeed or fail, you have done your best. Fear of failure is the opposite. You lose focus on the goal and instead concentrate on not failing. Your unconscious mind does not process negatives. If you think about
not
failing, you are still thinking about failing, and that is where your attention will be. Self-sabotage follows.

I once coached a very good golfer. He was on the edge of breaking into the “tour” where he could win excellent money. He had talent, but just when he needed a good shot, he would “choke.” He described a typical situation where he had to make a good drive off the tee. He knew he had to hit straight. He knew that if he sliced to the left, he would be in the long grass and off the fairway, in the rough. What went through his mind as he approached the shot? He heard a voice in his head repeating: “Don’t hit into the rough. Be careful, don’t slice to the left.” He saw a mental picture of the rough—with his ball in it.

Where was his attention? In the rough. His internal dialogue even gave him instructions on how to get there. The result? He sliced to the left. We worked on his internal pictures and internal dialogue so that 108

THE PRESSURE TO ACHIEVE

they focused on what he wanted, not what he wanted to avoid. This made a big improvement to his game.

What can you do about the fear of failure? Concentrate on what you want. (And don’t try to avoid the fear of failure, or you will tie yourself in existential knots!) When you are focused on what you want, there is no room for anything else.

Excuses

Excuses are rife in an achievement culture. Some people make excuses in advance because they count their self-esteem in terms of what they achieve. So they plead extenuating circumstances before they even start. They say in effect that they will “try” but because of the special circumstances, illness, etc., they may not succeed. They have a way out if they fail, and if they succeed, then they perhaps gain even more status because they succeeded against the odds.

It is best to avoid excuses, even if you have good ones; they set you up for failure. They focus your mind on the excuse and make it easier to fail. If you have an excuse, you will probably need it. Tell people about the difficult circumstances and decide whether to make the attempt in advance. If you do go ahead, don’t make excuses.

Other people’s opinions

How sensitive you are to other people’s opinions and feedback determines how much you are affected by the achievement culture. There is another metaprogram pattern in NLP that deals with that: the internal–external pattern. Some people are internally oriented. They decide whether something is good or not. They take other people’s feedback as information and decide for themselves. They judge according to their own standards, and their standards are inside them, not given by others. People with the internal pattern know when they have done a good job; they do not need others to tell 109

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them. Both internal and external people may be driven to achieve, but for different reasons.

Those with a strong internal pattern may drive themselves hard to achieve. They may not be satisfied with their own achievements, even if others are. They may not care what other people think and just go their own way, doing things in the way they want.

People with a strong internal pattern set standards, they do not follow them. Perfectionism is closely associated with a strong internal pattern plus very high standards; perfectionists usually disregard other people’s opinions.

In contrast, people with a strong external pattern get their standards from the outside; they take feedback not as information, but as suggestions or even orders.

Those with an external pattern are more likely to pay attention to cultural messages to achieve, and may drive themselves hard because other people (usually their manager) tell them. Both internal and external people may be driven to achieve, but for different reasons.

Most people have a balance of the two patterns, usually with a slight leaning toward one. They have their own standards, but they are open to feedback from others.

Blame

Everyone is responsible and no one is to blame.

WILL SCHUTZ

The concept of blame is strongly associated with achievement. When success is important, failure needs a reason. The best reason is that someone messed up—
they
are to blame.

Blame is an insidious idea, based on a simplified idea of cause and effect. Under pressure to achieve, blame can be an attractive concept to get us off the hook. But the idea backfires if there is no one else to blame, because then it is
our
fault. A culture of blame is a culture where people are very careful not to step out of line. When there is a strong element of blame in a business culture, the business is usually 110

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uncreative, because people are afraid to take chances and they spend a lot of time and effort covering themselves in the event of failure, so that the finger does not point toward them. (This is the classic CYA culture—Cover Your Ass.)

There are three possible areas of blame: J Life’s circumstances.

J Yourself.

J Other people.

Think about how you deal with problems. Is your first reaction to try to see who was to blame, or to blame yourself?

The blame frame

People who are caught in blaming usually ask certain types of questions:

J What’s wrong?

J Who’s to blame?

J Who’s going to fix it?

This is known as the blame frame in NLP—seeing the situation in terms of blame. Blame stops creativity and problem solving. It makes people afraid because when blame is in the air, no one knows when it might fall on them. Blame does not accept excuses. “I didn’t mean it” does not absolve you.

The opposite of blame is responsibility. You are responsible for the results you create. You do your best. Often people do not like the word “responsibility” because they think it means the same as blame. But it is very different—it means the ability to give a response. Without this, you cannot take any action and will be powerless.

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The contribution frame

It is easy to dodge our responsibilities, but we cannot dodge the
consequences of dodging our responsibilities.

JOSIAH STAMP

Blame usually enters when things go wrong. In this case, a better way is to think about
contribution
. No one is to blame, because no one has complete responsibility for what happens. Your success does not depend just on you, but on many people. Instead of blaming, it is better to explore how you and other people contributed to the situation.

Finding your own contribution does not mean that you are to blame, it means that you could have done something different and so you can learn from what happened. Maybe other people had a contribution, and you can understand how and why they did what they did.

When you think in terms of contribution you ask: J How did the other people contribute to this situation?

J How did I contribute to this situation?

This is the contribution frame.

Thinking in terms of contribution instead of blame does not gloss over what happened and does not mean that you have to put aside your feelings. The result is the same, but you can learn more. You do not feel as bad, and you escape the fear that comes from a culture of blame.

The outcome frame

Finally, when you have discarded blame and mapped contributions, think in terms of outcomes—what do you want to happen now?

Blame always focuses on the past, but you cannot fix the present by considering the past.

The outcome frame asks these questions in the present: 112

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J What do I want to happen here?

J How can I achieve a satisfactory outcome?

J What would it be like if we could solve this problem?

J What resources do I have to solve the problem?

J How will I feel when I have solved the problem?

Beliefs

Beliefs are habits of thought. We form them from our experience, and they determine the experiences we have. For example, if I believe that I cannot speak in public, I will not try, and therefore I will never get any learning or any feedback about my ability. Beliefs are not true; they are simply our best guesses at reality based on our experience to date. They guide our actions. Our beliefs about ourselves and others stop us from doing many things and therefore from getting experiences that could lead us to question those beliefs. They make the world predictable and therefore we often are reassured when a belief seems to be true, even if we don’t like it. “I told you so” is a satisfying phrase to say, even in a disaster.

NLP treats beliefs as presuppositions—assumptions about life, not the truth. They may be wrong, and if we think back, there have been plenty of times when what we believed turned out to be wrong. What is special about your beliefs right now? When you stay open to experience, you will confirm some beliefs and refute others. Limiting beliefs close our minds to experience that might disprove them.

Fear of failure often comes from one of three limiting beliefs: J What you want to do is not possible.

J What you want to do is possible, but you are not capable of doing it.

J You may be capable, but you do not deserve to succeed.

None of these beliefs can be proved. All you can say is that you have not yet succeeded.

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You have to make a leap of faith when you have no experience to back up the new belief. Here is a way to explore the limiting beliefs that are blocking you.