The Motivating Power of Fear

I’m a pretty stubborn disciplined guy. Once I have a task to complete, or a goal in mind, I tend to pursue it diligently. I’ve had my share of facepalm-inducing failures, but the number of successes probably? overwhelms those. 

I like to think that it’s the allure of the hoped-for positive results of the goal being met that’s motivated my actions and diligence. But some of my bigger achievements have come as a result of fear at least as great in force as any positive force pushing me forward. I don’t necessarily like that, but I can’t deny it. 

Health, care

To put it charitably, no one has ever mistaken me for an Olympic athlete. Surely, no one with functioning eyeballs ever will. People meeting me for the first time are as likely to exclaim “eeewww!” as they are unlikely to react with an impressed, “ooohhh!” But I’m fairly active and exercise a lot more than your av-er-age bear American. A low bar, I admit. But take it for what it’s worth, Dear Reader. 

Recently, I was diagnosed with a common, but significant, health issue. Let’s call it Health Condition #2. Left untreated, it could worsen and potentially kill me. 

Perhaps unsurprisingly, I’m not terribly interested in getting killed. So, as someone who’s so far successfully battled Mother Nature in her attempts to kill me by way of viruses, bacterial infections, breaks, and more, I prepared to do battle against Health Condition #2. 

Thankfully, this condition is one that many people can manage by way of a revised diet and regular exercise. If diet and exercise don’t work, or stop working, it’s time for medicine and/or more aggressive and less-palatable measures. 

Health Condition #2 runs in my family. So, I’ve long been aware that it might strike me sometime. The diagnosis therefore wasn’t a surprise in and of itself. But it was a surprise in that I didn’t necessarily expect it now. It’s the first really serious health scare I’ve had.

Actually, that’s not entirely true. Another health issue I suffer from (let’s call it Health Condition #1) also can be fatal, tho its effects likely would take far longer to kill me. That health condition, too, is one that can be managed by way of diet and exercise. 

That exercise that I mentioned above that I do? Yeah, I only do it only partially because I like to be physically active. I also do it because I’m afraid of Health Condition #1. Not so afraid that I’ve gone hardcore on diet and exercise. But afraid enough. 

My change in diet and exercise after being diagnosed with Health Condition #2 have been dramatic. And the results have been, so far, wildly successful. 

Could I have further improved my diet and exercise absent the Health Condition #2 diagnosis by way of some abstract desire to reach a positive result? Yes. Would I have? Maybe not. And certainly not as quickly and aggressively. 

Fear produced the desired results. And not for the first time.

Making the grade

Growing up, I was a good student. I studied regularly, was in the most advanced classes on offer, took an aggressive course load, and always had an overall A average. 

I mostly coasted through school until probably about midway through high school. Not without reason, my parents would rarely say much when they got copies of my midterm reports or end-of-semester grades. But sometime in, as I recall, sophomore or junior year of high school, one of those reports had two or three Bs (and, *gasp* maybe even a C). I was a little nervous about what my parents might think. But past performance led me to believe that other than showing extra concern and maybe nagging me with some suggestions of what to do (not like I wasn’t my toughest critic and didn’t already know what I needed to do), it’d pass without event.

I was wrong.

Instead, my dad yelled at me and demonstrated that he was mightily upset. As I knew he had been at best a fair-to-middlin’ student himself, part of me greatly resented his hypocrisy. But the other part of me was filled with no small measure of fear.  

I almost hate to admit it, but my dad’s outburst got me to study more and harder than I likely would have otherwise. My grades improved that year, and I think I put in more work the rest of my time in high school—and got better grades because of it—because of that event, too.

Fear produced results.

Ditto for my career. I’ve written before about an experience that I had in a past job in which I thought I might get canned. I wasn’t let go. But the experience left an indelible mark on me that remains to this day. Since then, I don’t take jobs for granted, and I’m far more all-in in my jobs than I’d care to be or, frankly, than probably is healthy.

Fear, meet results.

Imagine that

Fear also has been at least equal in effective measure to any other thing motivating me to improve our personal finances and to reach FI status. Fear of being dependent upon both me and The Missus having to have high-paying jobs. Fear of having to have me or The Missus having to have a high-paying job. Fear of having both me and The Missus having to have jobs at all. Fear of me or The Missus being dependent upon having a job. 

Funny thing is that, paradoxically, I wasn’t necessarily as fearful about our personal finances immediately before discovering FIRE—when our financial situation was far weaker—as I was afterwards. Wait, what?! Well, you see, what learning about FIRE taught me was that my ignorance probably had resulted in a failure to imagine adverse, but wholly realistic, results. It also, for what it’s worth, taught me that my ignorance probably had resulted in a failure to imagine wildly positive and wholly realistic results I couldn’t previously have imagined.

But fear has produced unequivocally positive results.

Since discovering FIRE, I’ve attacked our financial situation on two fronts: lowering our expenses so that it takes (far) less money to meet them, and creating income sources other than one or both of our primary jobs. I’m also aware of risks I’d never otherwise have been aware of and am taking measures to mitigate or (best-case scenario) eliminate them. 

For example, I know that once I FIRE at the end of this year, sequence-of-returns risk can derail things. I’d rather know this risk going in and be prepared to deal with it than not (not that I’m not prepared in advance). Similarly, our expenses could rise dramatically faster than our means to pay them. Highly unlikely, but certainly within the realm of possibility. So, I’ve thought about that and taken measures to address it, and am prepared to make adjustments if and when the time comes. 

And in the end . . . 

Now, don’t get me wrong, Dear Reader. I’m not suggesting that one let fear govern their lives. Not at all. I certainly don’t, as a rule. But I also know, from personal experience, that it can be an effective motivator.  As Rahm Emanuel once said, “you never let a serious crisis go to waste.”Oh, and that fear of, you know, dying that I mentioned above? It’s real. But I’ve got a cowbell-studded song in my head telling me, “don’t fear the reaper.”