(The following is from the book “Whose Ball Is It Any-way?/The 12 Principles of Ultimate Success” written by Jerry LePre. Any use without the written permission of the author is strictly prohibited.)

F.E.A.R.

Failure to Expedite Anti-cipated Resolutions

The fear of failure vanishes with effective anticipation since the skill to competently anticipate eliminates surprises, the major catalyst of problems.

However, when it comes to the skill of anticipation, most people think small-scale. They assume, instead of wisely predicting future outcomes. This limitation traps them in their own confined way of linear thinking.

The result is a rigid paradigm rooted on linear repetition that blinds them to other possibilities and probabilities. It erects mental barriers that prevent imagination and innovation by developing faux-anticipation skills that are responsive instead of proactive. These people wait for the expected doom to happen instead of doing something about it.

At best, their paradigm of the future assumes “What was impossible yesterday is probable today.” I say they should expand their paradigm to include “What is probable today will be ordinary tomorrow and obsolete the next day.”

To maintain a constant level of success, we must not only anticipate the trends of tomorrow; we must also focus on the solutions needed to face the challenges that are waiting beyond tomorrow. Effective anticipation ex-pands personal, family and corporate cultures by allowing us to envision the long-term future clearly without blinders and predetermined assumptions.

Alfred Hitchcock, the master of suspense movies, was a genius at using the element of surprise as his tool to create fear. Long before computerized special effects, Hitch-cock created his classics by expertly using scenes and camera angles to create an illusion of the unknown.

Hitchcock knew that fear of the unknown made a tremendous impact on his viewers. But once you have seen a suspense movie a few times, the impact of surprise is taken away. The original fear generated is never the same after repeatedly watching the film.

Our fear of failure is based on this same fear of the unknown. Thus, if effective anticipation becomes a habit, the unknown will become the expected. Fear will be eliminated.

This type of circular thinking breaks the confinements of traditional linear thinking by creating proactive solutions. These provide protection from tomorrow’s monsters.

©Copyright C. Gerard LePre