Tag Archives: Fear of Failure

6 Ways Fear of Failure prevents success

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By David Joel Miller, MS, Licensed Therapist & Licensed Counselor.

Success or failure.
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com

Fear of Failure wears disguises.

Some fear of failure may be protective; it gets us to do things we need to do and to avoid other dangerous things. But excessive fear of failure likes to wear disguises, that way it doesn’t get blamed for all the ways it prevents our successes.

1. Fear of failure is a primary cause of procrastination.

The longer you put off doing anything the more last-minute it is, the less responsibility you need to take for the results.

You can avoid some fear and anxiety by not doing the paper, project, or work-related task. Then when you do it last-minute you can say that this is not your best work. The procrastination has given you an out for why this project is not done well.

The result – you are not a failure when your task fails.

2. Fear of failure makes us missing in action.

Lots of people are so afraid that they will not do something perfectly that they do nothing. Similar to procrastination this method keeps us from feeling that it is our fault when we do not succeed. We didn’t do anything so there was nothing to fail at.

This is a large cause of writer’s block. If you are afraid that what you write today will not be any good, that is a good reason to not write anything today. Let’s face it, not all posts turn out to be great ones. Some don’t even make it to the so-so category.

String a row of days of non-writing together and you become a non-writer. No more negative comments or reviews.

3. We do the minimum to get by to avoid the fear of failure.

Fear of failure can also prevent us from sticking our necks out. If you do too much you get noticed. Do only the easy things, never aim too high and you can avoid a lot of failure in life.

Never volunteer an idea and you won’t get stuck doing the work. You won’t get the credit if it goes well but you also will not get the blame when it fails. It is a lot easier and safer to criticize others for why things went wrong than to risk yourself on trying to make things better.

Do the minimum and you also avoid any possibility of success.

4. We begin to look lazy and apathetic to avoid the fear of failure.

A similar strategy to doing the minimum is to pretend you do not care. If you do not care if you are inherently lazy and unconcerned, then how can anyone fault you for doing poorly at things you never cared about doing in the first place?

We expect nothing from lazy people and they customarily live down to our expectations. Stay lazy my friends and avoid any risk of failure or success.

5. We avoid any situation where others might judge us.

Don’t go for a job interview and you avoid being turned down. Drop out of school and you do not have to take tests. Avoid being around others and they will never judge you.

This strategy will help you avoid failure. It will also keep you unemployed, under-educated, and living off the system, in poverty, for the rest of your life. You will have avoided being judged but at what price?

6. We become perfectionists and set impossible goals to avert failure.

This may well be the sneakiest way of all to avoid failure. Set impossibly high goals. Always do too much work constantly and then when one of your many tasks does not turn out up to the standard you have a ready-made excuse. Who could blame you for failing at a few things what with all the things you have to do?

More tomorrow on those perfectionists and how they avoid both success and failure.

Related articles

Staying connected with David Joel Miller

Seven David Joel Miller Books are available now!

My newest book is now available. It was my opportunity to try on a new genre. I’ve been working on this book for several years, but now seem like the right time to publish it.

Story Bureau.

Story Bureau is a thrilling Dystopian Post-Apocalyptic adventure in the Surviving the Apocalypse series.

Baldwin struggles to survive life in a post-apocalyptic world where the government controls everything.

As society collapses and his family gets plunged into poverty, Baldwin takes a job in the capital city, working for a government agency called the Story Bureau. He discovers the Story Bureau is not a benign news outlet but a sinister government plot to manipulate society.

Bumps on the Road of Life. Whether you struggle with anxiety, depression, low motivation, or addiction, you can recover. Bumps on the Road of Life is the story of how people get off track and how to get your life out of the ditch.

Dark Family Secrets: Doris wants to get her life back, but small-town prejudice could shatter her dreams.

Casino Robbery Arthur Mitchell escapes the trauma of watching his girlfriend die. But the killers know he’s a witness and want him dead.

Planned Accidents  The second Arthur Mitchell and Plutus mystery.

Letters from the Dead: The third in the Arthur Mitchell mystery series.

What would you do if you found a letter to a detective describing a crime and you knew the writer and detective were dead, and you could be next?

Sasquatch. Three things about us, you should know. One, we have seen the past. Two, we’re trapped there. Three, I don’t know if we’ll ever get back to our own time.

For these and my upcoming books; please visit my Author Page – David Joel Miller

Want the latest blog posts as they publish? Subscribe to this blog.

For videos, see: Counselorssoapbox YouTube Video Channel

God needs an anger management class

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By David Joel Miller, MS, Licensed Therapist & Licensed Counselor.

Anger burning

Anger Burns the holder.
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com

Why is God so angry? Doesn’t God like us anymore?

God is in an evil mood these days, or so I am told. Even allowing for the possibility that there is more than one God this bunch needs some serious anger control training.

God is an equal opportunity hater. He has been quoted as wanting to kill, wound and maim, Christians, Museums, Jews, and Pagans alike. Anyone not fully in compliance with his impossible difficult requirements is at the full risk of his wrath.

God has not been in this vile a mood since the close of the Old Testament.

God is forever getting credit for things. We hear about acts of God. Mostly these consist of things like flood, famine, and pestilence. God would be doing hard time if he just stuck around at the scenes of his crimes but whenever we go looking for this dude he has snuck out the back way before he gets caught.

The Catholic God seems to be out to get the Protestants and the Protestant God is mad at well almost everyone. Even the Muslim guy, Allah, he has been out bombing and killing his followers, Sunni and Shiite alike, or so I have been told. Can’t prove any of this but, I see a whole lot more bombings and funerals than love fests.

Not sure what all them religious leader-types would do if all of God’s followers ever decide to start liking each other. No more religious wars? What will we do? What will we do?

You’re not like thinking there is any risk of this, are you?

Given the current state of wrath on the part of the various deities, what I am proposing is something like a WWE God smackdown. Let all the various Gods wreak havoc with each other and leave us out of the mix.

There is this theory that the problem with God these days is that he is lonely. The Hindus suggest that all the happy Gods have consorts. But then who is listening to the Hindus these days, are they sponsoring any good wars?

If by consort they mean Girlfriends and lovers, that might be what God needs so he gets back into the loving mood. If they are thinking wife, then based on my experience doing marriage counseling, having God get hitched is a bad idea. If you have seen the way married couples fight I am afraid of God and his wife trying to set the world spinning in two opposite directions.

Frankly, this is all very confusing. Why is God, according to his financial advisers, so into wars, hate, and killing?

It is not possible that any of God’s handlers and P. R. staff are spinning his positions on things incorrectly is it?

Just exactly who do we need to be talking to if we need some of that unconditional love stuff? Why then is it so easy for all these God-followers to find someone to hate and try to destroy?

Oh no! I think I have done it now. Someone is sure to write in and tell me that God hates me and wants me dead. I did vote the wrong way in that last water bond election and there is still that unfinished business with that Beatles album I listened to way back when.

These religious enforcers most likely will be more than willing to do God’s work for him, these folk always aspire to be junior Gods themselves, that deciding on who should live and who needs punishing is so much fun.

But really folks, doesn’t God needs some anger management classes, or maybe a marriage encounter group? It just pains me to see that deity person so unhappy. Anyway, could we get a happy God? One that loves us again? I am just saying—

Related articles

Staying connected with David Joel Miller

Seven David Joel Miller Books are available now!

My newest book is now available. It was my opportunity to try on a new genre. I’ve been working on this book for several years, but now seem like the right time to publish it.

Story Bureau.

Story Bureau is a thrilling Dystopian Post-Apocalyptic adventure in the Surviving the Apocalypse series.

Baldwin struggles to survive life in a post-apocalyptic world where the government controls everything.

As society collapses and his family gets plunged into poverty, Baldwin takes a job in the capital city, working for a government agency called the Story Bureau. He discovers the Story Bureau is not a benign news outlet but a sinister government plot to manipulate society.

Bumps on the Road of Life. Whether you struggle with anxiety, depression, low motivation, or addiction, you can recover. Bumps on the Road of Life is the story of how people get off track and how to get your life out of the ditch.

Dark Family Secrets: Doris wants to get her life back, but small-town prejudice could shatter her dreams.

Casino Robbery Arthur Mitchell escapes the trauma of watching his girlfriend die. But the killers know he’s a witness and want him dead.

Planned Accidents  The second Arthur Mitchell and Plutus mystery.

Letters from the Dead: The third in the Arthur Mitchell mystery series.

What would you do if you found a letter to a detective describing a crime and you knew the writer and detective were dead, and you could be next?

Sasquatch. Three things about us, you should know. One, we have seen the past. Two, we’re trapped there. Three, I don’t know if we’ll ever get back to our own time.

For these and my upcoming books; please visit my Author Page – David Joel Miller

Want the latest blog posts as they publish? Subscribe to this blog.

For videos, see: Counselorssoapbox YouTube Video Channel

The life roles we play – our many personas

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By David Joel Miller, MS, Licensed Therapist & Licensed Counselor.

How many hats do you wear?
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com

How many role hats do you wear?

In each of our lives, we all come to play many roles. These need not be false or fake, they are all facets of who we. None of them defines us in our totality. We are each progressively children, lovers, parents, and finally grandparents. We are employees, sometimes employers, and eventually retirees. We may also need to enact the role of a recovering person. Moving between roles can be full of challenges and dangers.

There are also a host of dysfunctional roles we may get trapped into playing.

When we are children we play the role of a child. Some families had a set of roles that everyone played. In family systems work, it has become common to talk about those varied roles you may have been asked to play and how they have affected the person you have become today.

Dysfunctional families keep these roles in the closet like a set of hats.

When someone leaves the family they may go to the closet get that hat out and pass it on to the next in line. Most families have a hero role. The child who does everything right and everyone gets compared to. One of the other people in the family may assume the Black Sheep role. Everything that goes wrong in the family is that person’s fault. But let the hero or the black sheep leave, by death or escape, and the family recruits a new person to play that role.

Were you the family hero?

Have you grown up believing that you had to be perfect to be any good? Do you need to rescue others to have a self-worth? You may have gotten locked into the hero role.

You may have been cast as the black sheep.

Were you told that everything wrong in the family was your fault, that you would never amount to anything? Were you told you would end up an alcoholic just like your father? Just as we may try to live up to people’s expectations many of us have learned to live down. The result is that expected to fail we do just that.

It is hard to stop playing the child to your parent’s adult.

People also get locked into the child role. They find it difficult to disagree with their parents or make their own choices. Sometimes to escape the orbit of their parents these folks have to create some sort of explosion and force a rupture in the family so they can escape the child role.

Every new couple has to navigate this task. You leave a family so does your partner. Together you create a new family. The task becomes which family traditions do you follow or do you create your own traditions.

If your parents tried to protect you from life by keeping you a child and not allowing you to make your own choices you may find it extra difficult to assume the role of partner in this new family. You can be stuck in an old role that interferes with finding your new role.

Roles – recovery roles and role conflicts.

Many times roles come into conflict. Your children want or need you to do some things and you need to be somewhere else doing something else. Learning to juggle and balance all the roles you need to fill can take practice.

Recovering people also have to learn to include the role of a recovering person in their repertoire. Do you do things to take care of yourself? Can you balance your need for self-care with your needs to care for others?

Some jobs include expectations that you will drink or do drugs like your coworkers. These roles conflict with the things you will need to stay in the role of a recovered person.

If you find yourself wearing many role hats, you may need to learn to make quick changes. You may also need to reexamine the roles you are playing and to discard some of those old role hats that no longer fit.

Related articles

Staying connected with David Joel Miller

Seven David Joel Miller Books are available now!

My newest book is now available. It was my opportunity to try on a new genre. I’ve been working on this book for several years, but now seem like the right time to publish it.

Story Bureau.

Story Bureau is a thrilling Dystopian Post-Apocalyptic adventure in the Surviving the Apocalypse series.

Baldwin struggles to survive life in a post-apocalyptic world where the government controls everything.

As society collapses and his family gets plunged into poverty, Baldwin takes a job in the capital city, working for a government agency called the Story Bureau. He discovers the Story Bureau is not a benign news outlet but a sinister government plot to manipulate society.

Bumps on the Road of Life. Whether you struggle with anxiety, depression, low motivation, or addiction, you can recover. Bumps on the Road of Life is the story of how people get off track and how to get your life out of the ditch.

Dark Family Secrets: Doris wants to get her life back, but small-town prejudice could shatter her dreams.

Casino Robbery Arthur Mitchell escapes the trauma of watching his girlfriend die. But the killers know he’s a witness and want him dead.

Planned Accidents  The second Arthur Mitchell and Plutus mystery.

Letters from the Dead: The third in the Arthur Mitchell mystery series.

What would you do if you found a letter to a detective describing a crime and you knew the writer and detective were dead, and you could be next?

Sasquatch. Three things about us, you should know. One, we have seen the past. Two, we’re trapped there. Three, I don’t know if we’ll ever get back to our own time.

For these and my upcoming books; please visit my Author Page – David Joel Miller

Want the latest blog posts as they publish? Subscribe to this blog.

For videos, see: Counselorssoapbox YouTube Video Channel

Drugs and alcohol – top men’s issues

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By David Joel Miller, MS, Licensed Therapist & Licensed Counselor.

Drugs and alcohol are top men’s issues.
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com

Men’s Issues.

The use and misuse of substances, drugs, and alcohol, is the number one issue for most men who come to counseling.

Traditional counseling with its emphasis on feelings and learning to communicate has let a lot of men down. Even when we have talked about gender-specific counseling strategies, gender mostly meant women. Men got left out. That is beginning to change.

What brings men to counseling.

Most men do not come to counseling willingly. Usually, they are forced, by the legal system, by their spouses and partners, or because they are out of work and required to do something to get further assistance.

Furthermore when men get to the therapy room most often they experience a woman professional whose focus is on telling them that what they have learned about their role as a man is wrong and that to be mentally healthy they need to think and act more like a woman.

Men get the bulk of their counseling these days in prisons and drug rehabs.

Drugs and alcohol permeate men’s lives, their experiences of what it means to be a man, and the way in which drug and alcohol use has interacted with the other parts of their lives. Here are some reasons men develop poor relationships with drugs and alcohol.

Men often begin to use and abuse substances at an earlier age than women.

They are often introduced to substances by an older male family member or a close male friend. Women, you need time to catch up. Women commonly get shown how to use substances by a boyfriend.

This early use results in gaps in men’s learning. You don’t remember all the things you did, let alone the things that happened when you were drunk. Lots of men fail in school because they were just too stoned to pay attention in class.

If you don’t learn skills as a teen you may need to go back and learn them when you get out of prison.

Men learn and are taught “real men” consume large quantities of substances.

Sorry guys, there are no supermen or men of steel among us. Even professional athletes get hurt. Real men do feel pain. The fact that we guys do not go to treatment for physical or psychological traumas results in men living fewer years and dying younger than their women companions.

Early and heavy use of substances, alcohol is especially implicated here, result in more illegal activities and send many men to jail or prison.

No, just drinking alcohol does not make you commit a crime, but most men who go to jail were drunk or high when they did that crime. Remember that alcohol shuts off the part of the brain that tells you “Hey stupid, don’t do that!”

Still, the myth that real men drink a lot and then do amazing feats of strength persists.

The majority of people with co-occurring disorders are men.

Men try to keep up this facade of invincibility right up to the grave. Men with mental health problems do not go for treatment. Mostly they use drugs and alcohol to cope with their mental illness and then end up in jail or prison.

The textbooks say that mental illness is more common in women than men. I do not believe that. I think those books are wrong. Women get counted as mentally ill because they get referred to outpatient clinics for treatment and they get counted there.

Men end up in prison and their diagnosis? They get labeled anti-social and told the problem is they are criminals. The result they keep trying to get well without accessing treatment.

Men are the homeless.

See pictures of homeless women on T. V.? The truth is that 80% of the homeless are men, men with a mental illness and a substance abuse problem mostly.

No, the homeless do not choose to be homeless. That is the lie that those with good-paying jobs tell themselves so they do not have to worry about it happening to them.

Most homeless men have substance abuse problems. If you had to live like that you might abuse something to cope. They also have mental illnesses. They may not want to take jobs; they may be so demoralized they do not think they could work if they got one. But no, they do not like going to the bathroom outside or staying in the shade under the bridge all day in the over one hundred degree weather.

Most of the homeless would love to have a place to stay. They just do not see how they can get one.

The reason these men stay homeless? They keep wrestling with that bottle or pipe believing that they should be able to control that substance. They think the drug is their crutch, but it is their controller.

The reasons men start and continue to drink and use are different from women’s.

Women use substances for fun or because they have suffered a trauma and they want to forget. Men use and drink because they have to, are expected to. If you can’t drink a lot you might as well turn in your membership card in the man club right now. That’s what men were taught. This is not true.

There are real men, strong, effective, and successful men who do not drink and do not do drugs. This notion that real men can hold their liquor, that is a fable. Eventually, everyone’s liver gets old and your tolerance declines. The amount you used to be able to do with no problem now gets you in trouble. Most real men eventually give it up.

We need to wrap this one up. I have painted a very bleak picture here, addicted, alcoholic homeless men. These are not the only men with a substance abuse problem. Substance abuse is a major men’s problem, even when that man looks perfectly normal. Drug addiction and alcoholism is also a women’s problem, though it affects women differently. For a long time, we only had special programs for women substance abusers. We now see both genders need help with this problem, so do children.

Turns out that this pesky weed, substance abuse, is involved with almost every social problem we are willing to look at honestly.

Related articles

Staying connected with David Joel Miller

Seven David Joel Miller Books are available now!

My newest book is now available. It was my opportunity to try on a new genre. I’ve been working on this book for several years, but now seem like the right time to publish it.

Story Bureau.

Story Bureau is a thrilling Dystopian Post-Apocalyptic adventure in the Surviving the Apocalypse series.

Baldwin struggles to survive life in a post-apocalyptic world where the government controls everything.

As society collapses and his family gets plunged into poverty, Baldwin takes a job in the capital city, working for a government agency called the Story Bureau. He discovers the Story Bureau is not a benign news outlet but a sinister government plot to manipulate society.

Bumps on the Road of Life. Whether you struggle with anxiety, depression, low motivation, or addiction, you can recover. Bumps on the Road of Life is the story of how people get off track and how to get your life out of the ditch.

Dark Family Secrets: Doris wants to get her life back, but small-town prejudice could shatter her dreams.

Casino Robbery Arthur Mitchell escapes the trauma of watching his girlfriend die. But the killers know he’s a witness and want him dead.

Planned Accidents  The second Arthur Mitchell and Plutus mystery.

Letters from the Dead: The third in the Arthur Mitchell mystery series.

What would you do if you found a letter to a detective describing a crime and you knew the writer and detective were dead, and you could be next?

Sasquatch. Three things about us, you should know. One, we have seen the past. Two, we’re trapped there. Three, I don’t know if we’ll ever get back to our own time.

For these and my upcoming books; please visit my Author Page – David Joel Miller

Want the latest blog posts as they publish? Subscribe to this blog.

For videos, see: Counselorssoapbox YouTube Video Channel

6 Reasons You Procrastinate

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By David Joel Miller, MS, Licensed Therapist & Licensed Counselor.

Success or failure sign

Success or failure.
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com

Why do you procrastinate?

Anyone can procrastinate some of the time. Some of us seem to be plagued by more procrastination than others. Procrastination can result in all manner of life problems, from conflicts with spouses to job failure or loss. With so many negative consequences of procrastination, why do so many of us procrastinate and why do some of us procrastinate so much?

Six factors appear to be major contributors to procrastination. No one factor seems to be solely responsible and you may experience one or more of these causes. There are listed in roughly their order of importance based on some rather old research studies but most of us can and do procrastinate for several of the reasons on this list.

1. Fear of Failure fuels procrastination.

As we talk about the fear of failure it is easy to see why being afraid you might fail at something would cause you to avoid doing it. Who wants to have to do something that has a high chance of failure?

Fear of failure is a major reason for procrastinating but it is not the only reason.

2. Lack of energy increases procrastination.

Not having the energy results in putting off things we know we should do but just can’t seem to get to. This is the consequence of over scheduling, having just too much to do. Most of us are guilty of trying to do too much in life.

If you can’t say no and you keep taking on projects for others or at their insistence, you can run out of time and energy. Sometimes you just need to rest and that old buddy of yours, procrastination can help by making time for you to rest by putting off things you say you “should be doing” but the reason for doing this is to please others not yourself.

Depression or other physical and mental health issues can also leave you with too few resources to take on that one more task.

3. Task aversion causes procrastination.

It makes sense that we put off things we do not want to do and we do the things we enjoy or at least the things we find less onerous. Not liking something results in it having a low personal priority.

Ever notice you tend to put off the things others want you to do but find the time to do the things that you most enjoy. Most of us do that. Despite the negative consequences, we may experience for failing to do what others, our boss or partner, want us to do. Most of us will do other things first and put off that requested project.

4. Dependency or conformity justify procrastination.

If you find that other’s requests move to first place, and you are procrastinating about doing things you want to do for yourself, you need to look at your goals and priorities. What are you getting out of sacrificing yourself for others?

Do you fear being different? Conformists avoid criticism. They also do not get noticed. Putting off things that might result in accomplishments may be the result of fear of success making you different from others.

5. Extraversion encourages you to procrastinate.

Extroverts may be procrastinators? Who would have guessed this?

Extroverts like doing things with people and they may go for the fun thing like being around others, attending a party or engaging in social activities, rather than study or do something boring over the weekend.

Extroverts sometimes will put things off because they like to take risks. It is more of a challenge to do the paper the night before it is due. Putting things off adds to that element of risk, that gambler’s instinct, and makes life more exciting.

 6. Rebelliousness expresses its self through procrastination.

Who picked this project anyway?

If you need to do something because someone else said so, one way your brain may protect you from domination by others is to forget to do what you were instructed to do.

So why do you procrastinate? Do you do it for one of these reasons, or do you have your own personal reason for putting things off? Research says that you probably procrastinate some of the time. We all seem to do it at least occasionally. If you are a procrastinator like the rest of us, you probably do it for several of these reasons and some others as well.

Related article

Staying connected with David Joel Miller

Seven David Joel Miller Books are available now!

My newest book is now available. It was my opportunity to try on a new genre. I’ve been working on this book for several years, but now seem like the right time to publish it.

Story Bureau.

Story Bureau is a thrilling Dystopian Post-Apocalyptic adventure in the Surviving the Apocalypse series.

Baldwin struggles to survive life in a post-apocalyptic world where the government controls everything.

As society collapses and his family gets plunged into poverty, Baldwin takes a job in the capital city, working for a government agency called the Story Bureau. He discovers the Story Bureau is not a benign news outlet but a sinister government plot to manipulate society.

Bumps on the Road of Life. Whether you struggle with anxiety, depression, low motivation, or addiction, you can recover. Bumps on the Road of Life is the story of how people get off track and how to get your life out of the ditch.

Dark Family Secrets: Doris wants to get her life back, but small-town prejudice could shatter her dreams.

Casino Robbery Arthur Mitchell escapes the trauma of watching his girlfriend die. But the killers know he’s a witness and want him dead.

Planned Accidents  The second Arthur Mitchell and Plutus mystery.

Letters from the Dead: The third in the Arthur Mitchell mystery series.

What would you do if you found a letter to a detective describing a crime and you knew the writer and detective were dead, and you could be next?

Sasquatch. Three things about us, you should know. One, we have seen the past. Two, we’re trapped there. Three, I don’t know if we’ll ever get back to our own time.

For these and my upcoming books; please visit my Author Page – David Joel Miller

Want the latest blog posts as they publish? Subscribe to this blog.

For videos, see: Counselorssoapbox YouTube Video Channel