Pitfalls of Fear of Facing Reality

Abstract

Evolution has endowed us with primordial reactions to escape from threatening situations in the form of fighting, fleeing or freezing. However, working in an industrialised world does not give us those options. We therefore unconsciously create defence mechanisms that mimic our evolutionary choices to suppress our fears and thereby give ourselves the impression that we are in control of the situation. Instead of facing reality we disconnect ourselves from current reality and regress into as-if-behaviour. The drifting goals archetype arises if the gap between norm and actual performance is bridged by lowering the norm instead of improving performance. The central theme of the archetype limits to growth is that an activity grows rapidly at the start, but the growth flattens out as a result of the limitations that are created by the growth itself. Working harder on what created growth at first is not going to help. You have to look at the limitations that slow you down.