

This post was originally published in October 2017,  I am republishing it here as a follow-up to my last post covering emotions and productivity.

The author of the title question posted this on  While he doesn’t mention procrastination or productivity directly, the “fear” he asks about, while actually anxiety as I discuss below, is the emotion that holds people back, leads to procrastination, and results in decreased productivity.

Here is the original post.

As an expert on emotions with two Amazon bestselling books, Emotions as Tools and Beyond Anger Management, I would offer a bit different perspective on your question.

You have used the word “fear” as it is commonly used. You noted “fear of being wrong” and “fear of failure”.

Unfortunately, both of these uses are incorrect because the emotion you are really referring to here is anxiety.

I should mention that, for all intents and purposes, it doesn’t really matter which word you use. When you understand the difference between anxiety and fear, you enable yourself to master both emotions and the suggestions I make below will make more sense to you.



Notice in your question that you are concerned about what might happen if you are “being wrong” or if you experience “failure”. Both are future possibililty. If you were wrong or had failed when you were writing the question, you would have asked a different question.

So, let’s address your question.


The first and most important question is this:





Question #2 is:

What do I need to do, learn, make happen in order to reduce the possibility of being wrong.


Distress is disabling, focuses on the worst case scenario, and leads you to act as if this outcome is inevitable. It is distress that you are most likely referring to when you talk about the “fear of being wrong”.


So, if you are prepared for the future event and you can survive it if goes bad, you will no longer have the “fear of being wrong” you asked about.



This is a disabling definition as it only gives you two options.

A more adaptive definition of failure is to see it as a process. As a process, failure is defined as “falling short Y times and getting up X times, where X > Y” It is this definition the person who quoted Edison is referring to.


And, for you readers seeing this for the first time, when you learn from your mistakes an move forward, you are more than likely being productive.