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Interesting theory but I'm not sure it's the whole picture. Personally, while I definitely identify with the "fear of failure" personality trait, I find my pro

Interesting theory but I'm not sure it's the whole picture. Personally, while I definitely identify with the "fear of failure" personality trait, I find my procrastination is down to two things: depleted willpower and inertia. To help with willpower, I try to keep my home environment as tidy and organized as possible (which doesn't come naturally). There's not too much I can do about my dayjob other than minimize my emotional investment (which also doesn't come naturally). I find inertia is the most important and possible variable to change. A yoga teacher told me once: "it's not so hard. Just start... then continue". Once I actually push past the hurdle of starting a project, and make sure I put some time into it weekly (even if it's only 30 minutes), over time my mental resistance aka procrastination diminishes, and I start to enjoy myself. Start... then continue.

mikeash 14y ago
Yes, some people may procrastinate due to fear of failure, but it seems clear that it's not universal. I know I'm not procrastinating on filing my taxes right now because I fear failure somehow. There's not much failure to be had, and I'm comfortable with the process and have a great accountant who helps me through it. I just don't feel like doing it right now, because the process itself is painful. I'd rather have silly conversations on the internet than dig through paperwork. It seems to simply be a matter of valuing immediate rewards more highly than distant ones. And this applies almost everywhere. The immediate reward of eating a donut can be far more prominent than the delayed reward of eating healthy. The immediate reward of spending money on dinner delivery outweighs the delayed reward of saving money. This seems to me a far more fundamental and interesting problem than fear of failure.
- shanusmagnus 14y ago
  This is an interesting point, but I think it's important to take 'fear of failure' the right way, which is not [always] literally a fear of failing at task X; but instead as a trained predisposition to not attempt things. In the same way that a basketball player can habitually and automatically pull up for a jump shot every time he drives left; or a person can open the refrigerator every time he comes home and throws his keys on the counter, so one can habitually and automatically defer doing things because the consequences of poor performance have burned that delaying tactic into one's behavior. Or so the theory goes -- as someone said up-thread, Piers Steel did an extremely thorough meta-analysis on the topic (gated article here, http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0191886900000131 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0191886900...; he eventually turned this paper into a book) that denies this perfectionistic explanation and instead breaks the issue down in terms of utility theory and temporal discounting. Which is fine; but I'm not convinced that the two may not be describing the same phenomenon from different levels of abstraction, in the same way that you can describe bird flocking behavior at the level of Newtonian mechanics, but describe it a lot more succinctly and meaningfully using Craig Reynolds's Boid model.
sergiotapia 14y ago
Thank you for this. "Start... then continue." It's something that I needed to read and really let it sink in to get my ass into gear. Really appreciate it.
- taproot 14y ago
  The hard thing is going to be to continue to start on monday after the weekend when I've forgotten all of this. :(
desireco42 14y ago
I think you better expand this in blog post :) I really enjoyed OP post, but your comment is what genuinely I believe most people have as procrastination, it is normal and your way of handling it is very good.
ndonnellan 14y ago
I would add indecision to the list of sources. I can't pinpoint where I first heard this, but it rings true to me. If can break down a large todo into its constituent pieces, each of which either has a trivial answer or has a clear path to finding the answer, I can mow all of them down. Bam bam bam. My downfall is when I forget that specificity works (when I get lazy). Exactly like me and TDD. You will eventually check all the boxes; enumerating them beforehand removes the crap.
lukevdp 14y ago
I agree. I find for me I don't really identify with the "fear of failure", yet I do have a problem with procrastination. I find tasks that I enjoy, or tasks where I am working towards a goal, easy to start and do. I find it hard to work on tasks where the task leads nowhere (the example of doing taxes is the perfect example)
jaggederest 14y ago
Ego depletion is largely a myth on a day-to-day basis, anyway. It's not a fixed reserve, it's a skill. Practice doing things that are difficult and you will get better at doing things that are difficult.
- triplesec 14y ago
  Not a zero-sum game. Thank you for this insight!

mikeash 14y ago

Yes, some people may procrastinate due to fear of failure, but it seems clear that it's not universal. I know I'm not procrastinating on filing my taxes right now because I fear failure somehow. There's not much failure to be had, and I'm comfortable with the process and have a great accountant who helps me through it. I just don't feel like doing it right now, because the process itself is painful. I'd rather have silly conversations on the internet than dig through paperwork. It seems to simply be a matter of valuing immediate rewards more highly than distant ones. And this applies almost everywhere. The immediate reward of eating a donut can be far more prominent than the delayed reward of eating healthy. The immediate reward of spending money on dinner delivery outweighs the delayed reward of saving money. This seems to me a far more fundamental and interesting problem than fear of failure.

shanusmagnus 14y ago
This is an interesting point, but I think it's important to take 'fear of failure' the right way, which is not [always] literally a fear of failing at task X; but instead as a trained predisposition to not attempt things. In the same way that a basketball player can habitually and automatically pull up for a jump shot every time he drives left; or a person can open the refrigerator every time he comes home and throws his keys on the counter, so one can habitually and automatically defer doing things because the consequences of poor performance have burned that delaying tactic into one's behavior. Or so the theory goes -- as someone said up-thread, Piers Steel did an extremely thorough meta-analysis on the topic (gated article here, http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0191886900000131 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0191886900...; he eventually turned this paper into a book) that denies this perfectionistic explanation and instead breaks the issue down in terms of utility theory and temporal discounting. Which is fine; but I'm not convinced that the two may not be describing the same phenomenon from different levels of abstraction, in the same way that you can describe bird flocking behavior at the level of Newtonian mechanics, but describe it a lot more succinctly and meaningfully using Craig Reynolds's Boid model.

sergiotapia 14y ago

Thank you for this. "Start... then continue." It's something that I needed to read and really let it sink in to get my ass into gear. Really appreciate it.

taproot 14y ago
The hard thing is going to be to continue to start on monday after the weekend when I've forgotten all of this. :(

desireco42 14y ago

I think you better expand this in blog post :) I really enjoyed OP post, but your comment is what genuinely I believe most people have as procrastination, it is normal and your way of handling it is very good.

ndonnellan 14y ago

I would add indecision to the list of sources. I can't pinpoint where I first heard this, but it rings true to me. If can break down a large todo into its constituent pieces, each of which either has a trivial answer or has a clear path to finding the answer, I can mow all of them down. Bam bam bam. My downfall is when I forget that specificity works (when I get lazy). Exactly like me and TDD. You will eventually check all the boxes; enumerating them beforehand removes the crap.

lukevdp 14y ago

I agree. I find for me I don't really identify with the "fear of failure", yet I do have a problem with procrastination. I find tasks that I enjoy, or tasks where I am working towards a goal, easy to start and do. I find it hard to work on tasks where the task leads nowhere (the example of doing taxes is the perfect example)

jaggederest 14y ago

Ego depletion is largely a myth on a day-to-day basis, anyway. It's not a fixed reserve, it's a skill. Practice doing things that are difficult and you will get better at doing things that are difficult.

triplesec 14y ago
Not a zero-sum game. Thank you for this insight!