Attributes of Fear in Achievement - Essay Example

Attributes Of Fear in Achievement Research question: What damage can fear cause in one’s ability? A dispute can clearly be seen in the two texts on the impact of the word broken. According to Franklin, ‘broken’ can be used in two ways; first she talks about it being used positively, that is, a contestant was told by the judges that she looked good broken. This is a positive comment that used the word ‘broken’, as the judges praised the picture. It is also seen that the judges use ‘broken’ in a negative way, whereby, they say “You look like the broken Tin Man”. Franklin concludes, “sometimes looking broken is good; sometimes it’s not”. However, she dislikes the criticisms from the judges. On the other hand, Amy Tan dislikes the use of ‘broken’ and says that it shows negativity. Although she uses this word to describe her mother’s language, she dislikes it and says she is looking for a better one to use. To her, ‘broken’ cannot be used in a good way unlike for Nancy, who sees it as good sometimes. There is a common ground on diversity as both writers highly value it and are happy that it is seen. The engaging of Indian woman in ANTM and having black plus size models in the contests is a good thing to Nancy. Amy wants more Asian Americans and Chinese people to engage in writing and not just concentrate in medicine and engineering fields. She argues that joining the writing field with her ‘broken’ English cuts all odds. Despite her teacher saying that writing is not something she could do, she went ahead and proved him wrong. The way her mother was treated in restaurants shows that people do not take their time to understand other people with different cultures. Consequently, this emphasizes the need to embrace cultural diversity (Franklin). Diversity is a show of variety in people’s culture, behavior and style. According to Nancy Franklin, America’s Next Top Model has more diversity among contestants’ than other reality shows. People from different cultures participate in the contest: for instance, an Indian woman in one of the cycles really set a stepping stone to others since not many Indians are found in this field. Indian women show them that being engineers or doctors is not the only career they can take. It also has plus size models and several blacks who made it to the semi-finals. Banks embraces diversity in all sectors which is so evident. This plays a great role in helping women love their bodies, thus boosting self-esteem. Banks starts ANTM to look for a girl who has diversity, can do many different things, pass different challenges and can fit in different cultures. Diversity is also seen in the judges since they are different in career and life styles. They have a designer, a photographer and a super model (Franklin). According to Nancy Franklin, she is perfect and fits completely to becoming America’s next top model. She is not able to achieve this because of her fear of tarantulas. Franklin argues that the contestants were to hold spiders next to their eyes or mouth for photo shoots. The fear of spiders overcame her passion and drive of becoming the America’s next top model; thus, she did not join the contest. This is a big setback for her achieving her goals in modeling. Eva, one of the contestants who talked about by Nancy, was the most freaked out about being photographed holding spiders. As much as Eva fears the spiders, her photos emerged the best amongst all other contestants. This clearly shows that fear should not be the hindrance to being the best - Eva takes the crown of America’s Next Top Model. In the other text, Amy Tan, who is a language writer, did not allow her fear to prevent her from achieving her dreams. Despite English was not her best subject and she performed better in mathematics compared to English, she still went on persuading her writing (Tan). According to Maxwell, criticism can be handled in three different ways: know yourself, change yourself, and accept yourself. Wanting to make everyone happy does not help self-growth. So, in order to grow, one has to make tough decisions which will make other people upset. Doing this can bring a lot of criticism; therefore, knowing oneself will help in dealing with criticism. Secondly, changing oneself is the process of handling criticism effectively, and this not only needs one to know oneself, but changing, too. Another way is accepting oneself, which creates a sort of real confidence attributed to understanding oneself, especially his/her strengths and limitations, thus not depending on affirmation from others. Lastly, in forgetting oneself it is important to understand that half of the stuff people say about oneself is true. Therefore, it is important to understand taking it up and working on it. If one understands him/herself, it is easy to know in what one is good at and in what s/he is not - this appears to be very critical in life. Knowing yourself, you will know what is best for you, and maximize it to gain in life. According to Mind Tools Journal, one can have several strategies to overcome fear. It’s suggested that the more we face fear and analyze it rationally, the likely it is to weaken one’s fears, dramatically reducing reluctance to achieve one’s dreams and goals. In this journal, the author shows an illustration whereby he/she makes a realistic analysis of what happens when one succeeds in his/her goals. The analysis talks of not looking at what happened or what one fears will happen, but instead one should always look at what is likely to happen. The following are the questions one needs to answer in order to analyze on self and be able to handle fear: How will my family and friends on accomplishing the goal? What changes will happen in my life? What is the worst case scenario if I achieve the goal? What is the best case scenario if I achieve the goal? Why do I have the feeling that achievement of this goal is not a priority? What is the level of motivation? What are my hindrances to my achievement of the goal? How can the self-sabotaging behaviors be changed? Another useful technique in overcoming fear is to address one’s fears directly and then develop a backup plan that will overcome one’s concern. John Maxwell answers the research question by giving tips on how to handle fear; it includes knowing oneself, changing one self, and accepting oneself. This will ensure that fear does not hinder anyone into achieving his/her goal. Concentrating on knowing yourself, accepting and changing yourself eliminates fears that arise from criticism and shying off from achieving one’s ability. In my opinion, fear of achieving one’s ability can be defeated by believing in oneself, thus boosting one’s self esteem. Self-esteem helps boost confidence and overcome fear in the end. Secondly, taking criticisms positively will help a great deal since it will allow growth in the ability of a person. From the text, Nancy’s fear of spider and taking criticism negatively made her not to join America’s Next Top Model. If her confidence was stronger than her fear of spiders, then she could go for modeling, which was her passion. Lastly, accepting oneself is important, no matter which the situation is; this is seen in Amy’s text - accepting what we are brings the best out of us. Works Cited Fear of Success - Improve Your Career with MindTools.com. Mind Tools - Management Training, Leadership Training and Career Training, 2012. Web. 16 Nov. 2012. Franklin, Nancy. “Model Citizens: Tyra Banks lines up the future of fashion.” The New Yorker. The New Yorker, 14 March 2005. Web. 16 Nov. 2012. Maxwell, John. "What are your fears keeping you from doing? John Maxwell on Leadership." John Maxwell on Leadership, n.d. Web. 16 Nov. 2012. Tan, Amy. Mother Tongue. Scribd.com, Nov. 2012. Web. Nov. 2012. Read More