Time: 5 min 52 s

Know Your Fears

Tim Ferriss upholds the principle “pessimism is a productivity booster.” One would normally think that’s not true. If there was a time when you were determined to finish something because you were scared of what would happen after, you might’ve adopted a pessimistic attitude that pushed you to do well.

Usually when we imagine ourselves in a really bad situation, we fight to keep afloat. Ferriss however encourages us to define our fears first rather than to define our goals while exposing ourselves to these negative emotions. The reason is that we get lazy or careless about fear, embarrassment, lack of finances and act accordingly when we have to make important decisions despite these emotions.

Face Your Fears

Have you ever heard the phrase, “to face your fear?” I feel Tim is encouraging us to face our fear, to be comfortable with being uncomfortable to succeed. When we think like this, we are prepared for the worst that can happen but still have the willingness to reach our goals.

Don’t Forget the Good

On the flip side many of us share the common philosophy that we can only succeed if we imagine success. The Law of Attraction promotes the relationship that positive thinking attracts positive results and vice versa. I don’t think Ferriss meant for us to only focus on our fears.

I do believe that defining our fears is a part of our success. If by any chance we were to fail, we would have developed the right attitude to correct ourselves for success, but someone who does not know how to deal with their negative emotions may always risk failure.

There is good that can come out of pessimism if we don’t allow it to consume us. If anything, it can push us beyond what we originally limited ourselves to achieve and open the door to unimaginable opportunities.  Now, that’s being optimistic!

Commentary by the Editor

It’s interesting that Tim Ferris mentioned that pessimism is a productivity booster. In fact in a recent NewScientist article, researchers at the University of New South Wales found that:

“A negative mood produces a thinking style that is more detailed and attentive, and pays more attention to the demands of the external environment”

while happy moods create more selfishness and narrow vision thinking. So Tim isn’t really all that far off the mark.

Even my work style uses a combination of positivity and negativity. When work needs to get done I get dark. When I’m in a social setting, I relax and get positive.

How about you? Do you find you get more work done by focusing spinning a bit of pessimism into your work? Or are you positive all the time with the same results?

“In nature everything is a roller coaster of everything between black and white with shades of grey.” (Sunny)

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Technorati Tags: negativity, Personal Development, positivity, Productivity, psychology