Fear of Failure - A Motivator?

My brain's irony come full circle. Get ready for a hypocritical talk with my mind. I'm currently watching a podcast where people are cooking steak, so this might just be the hunger talking.

I've always been the person so thinks failures are character builders. It hurts to fail a goal, but it's a message letting you know what you need to do in order to reach it. Then again, I'm a boatload of failures because I love to set unrealistic goals, therefore setting me up for realistic failures. I wonder if that makes me miserable all the time? Another conversation for another time.

As much as I enjoy the emotional roller coaster that is failing a goal, it makes me wonder what is more a exciting (or scary) motivation: failing a goal, or being scared of failing one?

Now it's weird I say that, right? I've failed goals all the time, so you'd think I wouldn't be scared of failing one. I guess it depends on the goal.

Maybe it's goals I fail that may disappoint people. People you invest time and effort in for various things, you never want to fail them. I set a high expectation for things like that and the other side may not reciprocate, but if I fail, it hurts, hard. Being scared of failing like that feel as if it should be a driver, but it can also not be, right? You worry so much about screwing up that you may end up screwing up in a different fashion than you imagine.

I'm scared of getting fired because I fail to meet expectations. I wake up almost every day thinking if it's the last day at my job because who knows how I'm going to screw up. It's easily forgettable after those 10 seconds in the morning and I can go on with my day, working hard, having fun (kind of), and staying a sad little man, all at the same time.

Personally, I think they're both good motivators. I'm a big fan of setting goals. You learn a lot from them. It does wonder, which one makes you feel even worse? If you let it get t you. I think I let it get to me all the time. It just tends to happen that way.

Enough, brain. The steak still looks good.