What's Stopping You?: Why Smart People Don't Always Reach Their Potential, and How You Can

Dream Fulfilment Is a False Promise

While the AM/FF split is well documented it appears to have been ignored by much of the modern self-help literature, which – while clearly aimed at frustrated people with an acute fear of failure, or with related issues such as poor confidence – perhaps assumes we would retain our unrealistic and avoidance-based goals even if we could overcome our fears. Meanwhile, those boring High-AMs are already grounded and thus an unlikely market for books on self-improvement.

Yet as a saturated High-FF it dawned on me that it was the dream that needed adjusting. The very idea of dream fulfilment is a false promise – potentially even a lie. It is a comfort blanket that, in reality, suffocates personal fulfilment through ...