blog

Is your life like a stuck emergency brake in your car, slowing you down and generating useless heat in the process? Many of our lives are like that, because we lack awareness of something going on in our minds: friction.

Friction is caused by a battle between what we want and what we expect.  Unfortunately, as long as we are unaware of that battle, it is often impossible to achieve success.

We may want a Nobel prize.  We may want our PhD.  We may even want our next big grant.

But wanting is not usually enough, because there’s another part of our mind (mostly in our subconscious) constantly telling us:

“Sure, you may want that grant, but you’re going to fail at getting it, so why even try?”

That subconscious part of our mind doesn’t expect success, despite our conscious wants.

And here’s how friction manifests itself in our lives: we take one step forward, and then take one step back.  We go back and forth, burning up energy that could have been otherwise spent actually overcoming obstacles to achieve the thing we want.

One of the most common ways this manifests is as “fear of failure.”  That fear leads to procrastination and delay.  Procrastination and delay lead to more likely failure.  As you think, so you are.

In other words, by expecting failure, your subconscious mind makes that very failure more likely.  And then it gets to say, “see, I told you so, you were going to fail!”

Friction is a trap that most of us fall into without even knowing it.  That’s why occasionally stepping back and examining ourselves is so vital to success.

It is only by identifying the source of friction then eliminating it that we can truly succeed in any endeavor.

Here are some strategies you can use to reduce friction in your life and career:

1. Realize that your mind is not “one,” but actually consists of competing wants and expectations. By self reflection, work to reconcile those.
2. Improve your self-confidence.  No, I’m not talking about building up braggadocio.  I’m talking about building simple confidence that what you set your mind to, you can achieve.
3. Eliminate fear.  Fear serves us when it prevents our demise due to immediate threats.  But it can easily take over, and make us fearful of all sorts of things that have nothing to do with our immediate health and well being.  When it comes to a project like a grant proposal or a PhD, fear serves little useful purpose.

By doing these and other things to eliminate friction, you’ll notice a marked improvement in your ability to get the truly important things out of life, and ignore the less important things.  To find out more about eliminating friction and boosting your success, grab the free report “The 5 steps to a successful career,” and watch the upcoming newsletters for more strategies.

---

Morgan Giddings is the author of “Four Steps To Funding,” and creator of “The Grant Dynamo.”  She’s also an Associate Professor of Microbiology & Immunology at The University of North Carolina.