What’s the difference between a Grasshopper and a performance review?

While Grasshoppers may not be scary to you, the truth is, you are definitely fearful of certain things. If not, you’d likely be dead already because it’s fear that keeps us safe. The major challenge today is that most of what we fear involves situations that are not life-threatening at all…such as, getting stuck in an elevator, being in a large crowd of people, public speaking, asking a ‘dumb question’ in a room full of senior executives, challenging your boss, losing your mobile phone, not having access to the internet or preparing for you next performance review. Before you judge, these are all real examples that I’ve discussed with my clients that evoke physiological responses similar to those that you might experience when faced with real danger. What’s worse is that common way of dealing with such fears is to avoid them completely. While this seems smart it acts to reinforce the learned fear response so if you ever get presented with a situation you can’t avoid, you’re likely to experience panic. This avoidance tactic also reinforces the notion that it’s ok to stay comfortable and not push yourself to grow, expand and develop. In other words, you get to be a bit lazy which your brain loves!