CAT aspirants need to work hard and at the same time need to keep failure at an arm’s length. Fear of failure blocks the good effects of hard work. What is Fear? It is a noun denoting a painful emotion or passion excited by the expectation of evil, or the apprehension of impending danger; apprehension; anxiety; solicitude; alarm; dread. Thus, it is rightly quoted that ‘fear is an uneasiness of the mind, upon the thought of future danger likely to befall us’ (Locke). It is not only professionals who fall prey to this but even students can which is rather alarming! Aspiring students must stay away from any form of fear!
Then what do we mean by Failure? It refers to the state or condition of not meeting a desirable or intended objective. It may be viewed as the opposite of success. Hard work is about risk. It begins when one deals with the things that one would rather not deal with: fear of failure, fear of standing out, fear of rejection. Hard work is about training oneself to leap over this barrier, tunnel under that barrier, and drive through the other barrier. And, after one has done that, to do it again the next day.
The meaning of hard work in a manual economy is clear. Without the leverage of machines and organizations, working hard means producing more. Hard work meant more work. But the past doesn’t lead to the future. The future is not about time at all. The future is about work that’s really and truly hard, not time-consuming. It’s about the kind of work that requires us to push ourselves, not just punch the clock. Hard work is where our job security, our financial profit, and our future joy lie.
But this does not go with the People with a high fear of failure who tend to have low achievement motivation. Typically these people then adopt internalized, unrealistic standards or they compete internally with unreachable goals all the time. They then expect failure and therefore avoid beginning anything so as to avoid the negative feelings accompanying the expected failure.
The characteristics of the person with high fear of failure are that they tend to attempt very easy tasks where failure is virtually impossible. They avoid the tasks of moderate difficulty that the achievement oriented people focus on. In general, the fear of failure manifests in starting difficulties – beginning something. People with fear of failure tend to postpone, put off or otherwise avoid doing something until it reaches crisis proportions and then do too little, too late. Fear of success manifests in ending difficulties. These people start strong and pick up strength as they go along and then near the end, just when success is around the corner, make unforced, impulsive decisions that negate all the earlier hard work, thus blocking the good effects of hard work.
For example students who apparently give up prior introspecting their strengths and start believing like pessimists that they can not make it or crack the CAT. Thus, gradually leaving all the possible preparations aside and waiting for some MIRACLE to happen. But in this rational, logical and scientific world MIRACLE does not happen: hence, not doing the right work at right time blocks the hard work to happen.
At the extreme, many low-achieving students deny the importance of learning and withhold the effort it requires in order to avoid the stigma of having tried and failed.
Good intentions often backfire. Many teachers are at cross purposes about setting higher expectations for low-achieving students, especially those who are disadvantaged. Simply put, teachers seek to reconcile the added student effort that higher expectations require with their concern that disadvantaged and low-ability children may be excessively burdened. In their attempt to be fair and to protect their pupils’ self-esteem, teachers often excuse disadvantaged children from the effort that learning requires. This practice obscures the connection between effort and accomplishment and shields children from the consequences. The practice also sets the stage for later failure.
‘The big secret in life is that there is no big secret. Whatever your goal, you can get there if you’re willing to work.’ (Oprah Winfrey)
Today, working hard is about taking apparent risk; taking all sorts of emotional and personal risks that are bound to pay off. Hard work is about risk. It is about taking or accepting the Challenge. And why is challenge important? Why not just do what’s easiest?
Most people will do what’s easiest and avoid hard work — and that’s precisely why you should do the opposite. The superficial opportunities of life will be attacked by hordes of people seeking what’s easy. The much tougher challenges will usually see a lot less competition and a lot more opportunity. Strong challenge is commonly connected with strong results.
The world is an integration of opposites. There can be no day without night; without evil, we wouldn’t be able to differentiate the good. If you’re successful somewhere, you could be failing elsewhere. Very often, people successful at work fail in their home lives and vice-versa.
This really raises the question: Does failure at one kind of business/ job mean that we will be successful at another and it’s just a matter of finding the right activity? Very possible. If we have the capacity for both good and evil we also have the capacity for both success and failure – and both equally accessible?
“Fear is the main source of superstition, and one of the main sources of cruelty. To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom.” (Bertrand Russell). Every failure brings with it, a lesson. It is up to us to learn from the lesson and move on. Very often, failure is the best thing that can happen to you. Most entrepreneurs learn caution, the importance of planning and risk more carefully after failure. Failure is the breaking of the shell.
Albert Einstein’s accomplishments rise well above other physicists. So much so that Time Magazine named him “Man of the Century”. With great foresight he developed a number of outstanding theories in science, including special and general relativity and the explanation of the photoelectric effect, for which he won the Nobel Prize. However, like other great men, he also met his match. In spite of much effort in his later years, he failed to develop a unified field theory combining the forces of gravity with electrodynamics. Less known, but perhaps much more important because it was not only intellectual but also personal, Einstein failed to reconcile the evil he saw and lived-the evil of the Jewish Holocaust-with his strongly held views of a completely determined universe. In his own words:
“Everything is determined . . . by forces over which we have no control. It is determined for the insect as well as for the star. Human beings, vegetables, or cosmic dust-we all dance to a mysterious tune, intoned in the distance by an invisible piper.”
Henry Ford failed twice before he succeeded with the Ford Motor Car Co. Konosuke Matsushita faced many early failures before National Panasonic came about. If you’re failing, you’re in good company. “Fear is essential for courage.” (John F. Murray)
For aspiring students it is vital to understand fear and then take steps to conquer it. Fearing fear will only hamper the good effects of hard work.
[Arvind Passey]
[2007]
Written for PT Education
