Emily McDonald explains how avoiding things to escape fear of failure actually trains your brain to avoid more. Each time you skip something uncomfortable, your brain registers relief as a reward. This negative reinforcement loop makes success less likely, not more.
Avoiding failure actually makes you less likely to succeed. I'm sure you've heard of positive reinforcement before, right? If you are training your dog to sit, you give your dog a treat. That's what positive reinforcement is. But there is also something called negative reinforcement. And negative reinforcement essentially is reinforcing the behavior by removing something bad, removing a negative experience. Okay? So if you are wanting to achieve a goal, But you are afraid. Every time you avoid taking action out of fear of rejection, out of fear of failure, you reinforce your brain through negative reinforcement. You remove the anxious feeling through avoidant behavior. So now your brain is learning and being rewarded by avoidant behavior. It's going to do the thing that it's been reinforced to do— avoid— because you have essentially rewarded yourself for not trying.
