Mark's Blog

"Our doubts are traitors. And make us lose the good we oft might win by fearing the attempt.” Shakespeare, Measure for Measure

My working definition of reluctance is that is the disinclination to act, express or engage that is paralyzing in its effects.

Reluctance in its myriad forms is ubiquitous in every day life. Not a day goes by that most people don’t experience it in some fashion. Whether it is being disinclined to ask for change from a store clerk for the parking meter, refusing to start a conversation with a member of the opposite sex encountered on a bus, or putting off for another day the beginning of a weight loss program, the opportunities to give in to temptation, inertia, or fear are very numerous.

In contemplating this variety, it strikes me that reluctance can be grouped in the following patterns.

Initiative Reluctance or the Reluctance to Undertake

Reluctance to take the first step whether in starting some personal change project like skill building, or taking up a new career, or starting a business, or dropping a bad habit is a familiar experience for most. Making the decision to move forward is fraught with difficulty sometimes, as if the choice itself will put one in new, scary place.

Taking the first step raises certain negative thoughts: what if I fail, what if others disapprove, what if there are unanticipated consequences I can’t handle, what if…. what if, etc. The implications that are imagined can themselves function to paralyze and oppress.

Two common features of initiative reluctance are fear of failure, fear that one will not succeed because of some personal inadequacy; or fear of negative evaluation from others, the audience who receives or witnesses the initiative. And this fear is often self invoked or projected due to one’s own lack of confidence. Hence inferiority or low self confidence and reluctance based on fear of negative evaluation tend to be yoked.

As defenses against these anxieties, most of us procrastinate and this takes the form of wishful thinking, fantasizing and intellectualization.
Avoidance of the anxiety of action becomes primary; one escapes into reason to avoid feelings of possible panic.

However, as a solution, these defenses against anxiety offer limited fulfillment. They only defer action and eventual satisfaction. They give a sort of faux fulfillment, a delusion that we are making progress when in fact we are just stagnating. The result: the inevitable self sabotage, or, as I have recently come to phrase it, getting stuck in a self cancelling gridlock.

Better to act and fail than to defer and hope for the best.


Mark's Blog