And it seems that the opportunity cost has another effect: I like having a bunch of different things to do, so sacrificing the feeling of being a jack-of-all-trades is another thing that I’ll have to deal with.

And I’d be very interested in reading some of the buttload of articles on limiting beliefs – I’ve been thinking of doing a post on that for a while, but it just hasn’t been good enough…

Glad to hear you’re working on your fear of success! And I’m glad you brought up opportunity cost, because I think I struggle with that too.. we think of success as only playing out in 1 way–do you want to be successful or not? But it could really involve more complicated decisions, like what you’re going to spend all your time on. Which makes my problem more or less an existential crisis. (Sigh..)

The self-fulfilling prophecy you mentioned can also, I think, be tied to the concept of limiting beliefs.. where people have beliefs that cause them to unwittingly sabotage their own opportunities for success. e.g. the belief that you don’t deserve to be successful/you’re not worth it, that it’s wrong to have lots of money, that failure is bad (meaning, worse than not trying at all), and so on. There’s a buttload of articles out there on that kind of thing.. I’ll find you some if you’re really interested.