From fear to excitement

Thanks for writing this sequence, lots of great points and matches my experience. 

I think there is evidence in mainstream psychology for your recommendation of replacing fear with more excitement-based motivation. They use the terms "avoidance motivation" and "approach motivation" but my sense is that they match the terminology of fear and excitement very well. It appears that (excessive) avoidance motivation leads to reduced well-being and performance, at least in the long-term (e.g., Roskes et al. 2014).

ETA: The above reference is not good. Scholer et al. (2019) provide a more nuanced and comprehensive overview of the literature and also discuss when (and in which contexts) avoidance motivation can be useful or even superior.