On the Fear-as-Motivation Paradigm

and why it provides a “magic” motivational formula.

“Only one who has risked the fight with the dragon and is not overcome by it wins the hoard, the “treasure hard to attain.” He alone has a genuine claim to self-confidence, for he has faced the dark ground of his self and thereby has gained himself.” — Carl Jung

If motivation were a fire, humans have long since learned to use their emotions as kindling material. Since time immemorial, we have used our emotional brain circuitry to hack our motivational state and achieve big goals. However, some emotions prove better kindling for motivation than others. Love as fodder for motivation, I argue, is not good kindling. The fire may burn as bright, but not as long. Instead, I argue, some of the most motivated and efficient people that have ever lived are what I call fear-motivators. They can light a fire under their own butts and use that as a motive force to propel them towards a desired state. Or is it, rather, propelling them away from an undesired one? If they are harmonious, that is, they meet the same end, does it matter? I say it doesn’t (and it does).

Negative avoiders vs. Positive achievers. In a general sense, motivation for a stated end can be cast as:

1.The negative motivation required to avoid an undesired state, or

2.The positive motivation required to achieve a desired state.

Fear-motivators utilize the #1. outcome-avoidance pathway, and I believe this is the stronger motivator. I will explain why later on.

I know quite a few fear-motivators. You know people like this. They always seem tense, on edge, and as if every moment is a precious gift that mustn’t be wasted. As if they have an instantaneous cost-benefit calculation going on in their heads that allows them judge whether a course of action gets them closer to their prime directive. Sort of like robots. How is it that they can be so calculating? Allow me to expound by metaphor.

If our goals are represented by a treasure chest, then no doubt, a dragon is hording the treasure at the bottom of its lair. Should there be a tunnel leading us to said treasure, surely we would have to overcome the dragon before partaking in the spoils. Most people are hesitant at the sight of the great big dragon between them and their goals. Hesitation is the natural act when confronted with a dragon. And I like to think,

The vaster your vision is, the vaster becomes the dragon blocking your path towards fulfulling it.

But image if, instead of seeing a dragon between oneself and the treasure, and letting that be a cause for hesitation, one imagines the dragon behind them, chasing them towards the treasure. Which arrangement, then, leads to the fastest achievement of the stated end, the treasure? Clearly the latter. Instead of having to surmount a dragon, one simply runs away from it, quickly! This certainly leads to the fastest attainment time of the treasure chest.

I postulate that fear-motivators are entirely capable of imagining said dragon behind them, either in a subconscious way or an entirely explicit, internalized way. Some people know that they’re running away from a dragon, some don’t; in either case, the fact of the matter is that the dragon is the kindling.

Fear-motivators vs. Robust motivators. I further postulate that diametric to fear-motivators are robust growers, who, unlike fear-motivators, do not have a ‘prime directive’ that can be quantified (slay 13 dragons, obtain 36 golden coins). The goal of the robust grower is just to grow. I fall into this category.

1.The query of the fear-motivator:

Motivation, to me, is found by answering yes to the question: Does this action get me further away from the undesirable state?

2.The query of the robust-motivator:

Motivation, to me, is found by answering yes to the question: Does this action put me on an overall better path than I was yesterday?

So long as one can answer yes to this question, one knows that he is in the proper orientation, and should proceed with the action. A robust-motivator may not be as efficient in obtaining and meeting quantifiable goals and metrics, but at least he has a path directing him towards desirability, and knows which ones lead to undesirability.

Inertia via uncertainty. The query of the robust-motivator can lose out because it can be a fuzzy one to answer. Knowing whether an action will put you on a better path than yesterday is not easy to answer. Knowing whether an action puts you further away from your undesired state is easier to answer, and thus, the outcome-avoiding fear-motivators have the better kindling.

Now that we’ve covered some of the spectrum as to the different types of motivational states used to aspire to a goal, let’s cover how some people approach their goals.

Goal-oriented growth vs. Holistic growth. Goal-oriented growers don’t process failure well. To those who are holistic growers, failure is not seen as a loss, but a necessary tradeoff to attain growth. A day can be spent riddled with failure after failure, but the next day, when the holistic grower asks himself: Am I better off than I was yesterday? He can say yes, for though he made no progress toward a goal, he leared a lot of lessons. When the goal-oriented individual asks himself: Am I closer to my stated goal? His answer is no. He did not make ground towards his quota. Thus, it can be hard to cope with and account for failure within the goal-oriented paradigm.

The reality of the fear-as-motivation paradigm.

I argue that fear-motivators have hacked an age-old predator-avoidance brain circuitry to achieve their goals at unprecedented rates. Surely, their efficiency in achieving said goals and avoiding failure is undebatable. But, as their conduct becomes one not dissimilar from that shown by prey towards its hunter, I argue this has long-term repercussions on the body. The body of the fear-motivator always in emergency preparedness mode, perennially stressed, and anxious. Increased basal cortisol levels associated with running from the predator, the dragon, in effect, makes one older, less resistant to disease, and damages his brain.

Hence, the redeeming point is that the hyper-motivation observed in some fear-motivators has a big tradeoff. One I would be hesitant to take.