By Paul Hendrickson – <\/p>\n\n\n\n
One of my first managers used to say that most people fall into two categories \u2013 those driven by a desire to succeed and those driven by the fear of failure. That was twenty years ago, and it still rings true today. So which are you? Not sure? Ask yourself the following five questions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Do I Compare Myself to the Bottom or to\nthe Top?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n People driven by a desire to succeed are always looking at those\ndoing better than them in their field. What\nare they doing that I\u2019m not doing?<\/em> How\ncan I reach their level of success and surpass it?<\/em> <\/p>\n\n\n\n Those driven by the fear of failure measure bottom up. Well at least I\u2019m doing better than so and\nso. It could be a lot worse. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Are My Goals Too Easy?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Another sign of someone driven by a desire to succeed is the\nway in which they set goals. They are not happy with simple goals that take\nminimal effort. They want to dream big and go for broke. No risk equals no\nreturn. I want to sell more units than anyone else in my division this month \u2013\nand for the year.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n On the other hand, those driven by the fear of failure will\nset goals they know they can easily achieve with minimal effort. They want to\nshow they can do something and hopefully better than someone else. I want to sell at least a few more units\nthan the other salesperson I always beat each month. Last place will not look\ngood when bonuses come out.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Do I Redefine Missed Goals as\nSuccesses?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n People driven by a desire to succeed will not be content\nuntil they reach all of their goals. Nothing short of achieving exactly what\nthey set out to accomplish will suffice. I\nmissed that goal, but I am going to keep working until I achieve it! <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Those driven by the fear of failure will often rewrite\nhistory when it comes to goals. A missed goal is left in the past and new ones\nare quickly created. I didn\u2019t hit my goal,\nbut accomplished a few things. Not too bad considering everything going on. I\u2019ll\ncall it a win and move to the next one.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Am I Fully Invested?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Those driven by a desire to succeed are fully invested in\ntheir career, project, or personal goal. They want to see success no matter how\nlong it takes. They will often put in extra time to reach the result they want.\nThey are also good at finding ways to work more efficiently to conserve time and\nstill hit their goal. I need to find a\nway to make this work. It may be hard, but it will be worth it in the end.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Those trying not to fail will put in the minimal amount of\nwork needed to show forward motion. They don\u2019t mind being fourth or fifth because\nthe people above them are spending too much time and effort trying to be first. Put in your time, go home, and then do it\nagain tomorrow. The key is to stay off management\u2019s radar.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Am I Focused More on Process or\nResults?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n People driven to succeed may have repeatable processes they\nuse to achieve their goals, but they focus more on the results and not on the\nprocess. They realize their goal may require them to get out of their comfort\nzone and change how they do things. The\nprocess is not working, but it can be fixed. We have to hit our goal and the\ncurrent process is keeping us from doing that. Our customers care about\nresults.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Individuals driven by the fear of failure will often see\ncompleting steps in a process as their success versus the end result. They want\nto be able to show they checked off boxes. Completed tasks mean progress even\nif the end result falls well short of expectations. I realize we missed our goal, but we were able to complete the first\nfive steps. That\u2019s something. Maybe we can do the others next quarter and\nhopefully the results will look better. At least we did better than the other\nteam.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Fluctuating Motivations<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Now that you have done some introspection, consider this \u2013\npeople change. When you were younger and had less experience, the goals you set\nprobably looked different than the ones you have today. Your motivations were\ndifferent too. Don\u2019t cling to an old goal that is no longer relevant. It may\nkeep you from succeeding in other areas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Although people generally fall into one of the two\ncategories, you may fall into both depending on the context. For example, you\nmay be driven by a desire to succeed in school, but driven by the fear of\nfailure when it comes to certain subjects. It is helpful to understand your natural\ntendencies in this area when setting new goals. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By Paul Hendrickson – One of my first managers used to say that most people fall into two categories \u2013 those driven by a desire to succeed and those driven by the fear of failure. That was twenty years ago, and it still rings true today. So which are you? Not sure? Ask yourself the Read More …<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":356,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-353","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paBBVc-5H","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/paperbackdragon.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/runner-555074_1920_vs2.jpg?fit=1708%2C695","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/paperbackdragon.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/353","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/paperbackdragon.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/paperbackdragon.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/paperbackdragon.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/paperbackdragon.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=353"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/paperbackdragon.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/353\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":355,"href":"http:\/\/paperbackdragon.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/353\/revisions\/355"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/paperbackdragon.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/356"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/paperbackdragon.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=353"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/paperbackdragon.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=353"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/paperbackdragon.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=353"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}