Overcoming fear of success involves learning how to stop sabotaging your relationships, career & life goals.
To overcome your fear of success, you need to learn to stop sabotaging your relationships, career, and life goals. “Fear of success” may sound strange, because who wouldn’t want to be successful? Successful people have money, power, fast cars, personal trainers, hired help – there doesn't seem to be much to fear!
However, success is scary because it involves change. Success can be intimidating and hard to handle. Success also involves more challenges and responsibilities – and that is threatening, which is why many people fear success.
6 Ways to Overcome Fear of Success
You may always feel fear of success or fear of failure, but that doesn’t mean you’re paralyzed. These tips won’t make fear disappear – they’re practical steps to success.
1. Figure out why you’re sabotaging your goals. You don’t have to go to a psychotherapist to figure out why you fear success. Talk to people you trust, write in your journal, and be honest with yourself. What are you afraid to admit? What’s holding you back from losing the extra weight or asking for a promotion at work? You don’t have to go further than that. Just accepting your reasons will give you a sense of freedom.
2. Prepare yourself. A huge sign of self-sabotage or fear of success at work occurs when you don’t study for the exam or work presentation or big project. You subconsciously or deliberately sabotage yourself when you fail to prepare by, for example, partying all night or choosing the wrong work partners. The more you prepare, the more your fears may subside.
3. Accept failure as part of succeeding. “It’s a common assumption that if you really try your hardest to get something and don’t get it, you’ll be shattered – so it’s safer not to risk going out at all,” says Barbara Sher in Wishcraft. “That is totally false. The exact opposite is true.” If you try and fail, you won’t feel as bad as you think. You’ll gain experience, education, contacts, and self-confidence.
4. Be scared. Scared of asking, trying, working hard, pushing yourself, sharing your dreams? Big deal. We all are. Read Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway by Susan Jeffers. If you don’t have time to find the book, then just make it your motto. Feeling the fear and doing it anyway will help you overcome fear of success.
5. Compete against yourself – not others. “Competition in which one person must lose in order for us to win tends to undermine the best in most of us,” says Robert K. Cooper in The Other 90%: How to Unlock Your Vast Potential for Leadership and Life. “It makes us wary and distrustful of others, causes us to withhold and distort information, makes us intolerable of uncertainty and change, and it so narrows our focus that constructive creativity is practically shut down.”
6. See your skills as changeable. Research shows that if you think your professional skills and abilities are fixed, then you’ll become anxious if you’re successful. Psychologist Jason Plaks from the University of Toronto and research scientist Kristin Stecher from the University of Washington found that people who think their capabilities are fixed get disoriented when they succeed, and their performance then spirals downward. To overcome fear of success, view your skills as changeable (and change them with education, training, research, or mentoring).
If you found Overcoming Fear of Success helpful, try:
The copyright of the article Overcoming Your Fear of Success in Psychology is owned by Laurie Pawlik-Kienlen. Permission to republish Overcoming Your Fear of Success in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.
I have a friend who is immensely talented, but he doesn't want the
world to know it, so he deliberately rationalizes ways to avoid situations
where his talent will be exposed. He claims he is not ready for
"prime time", but he's been saying that since I've known him.
I've known him for over 25 years. I used to have the same problem, but
I got over it by jumping into the water head first. Now, I realize that
there is more to gain than to lose by embracing success. By success, I mean
achieving a goal and not exploiting someone so I can be rich. The fear of
success in my opinion, in Canada in particular in cultural in nature.
Canadians are enculturated in thinking that anyone who tries to improve
their plight is an elitist.
Nov 7, 2008 1:15 PM
Laurie Pawlik-Kienlen :
Wow, that's really interesting! I wonder if this makes Canadians less
likely to succeed...it would seem so. Maybe that's why we don't have as
many famous Canadians -- not like America, anyway.
Success is
TOTALLY scary -- I know the thought of achieving all my goals freaks me
out. :-) But still - like you said - we can get over it by jumping in
head first...
Feb 23, 2009 2:26 AM
Guest
:
It's funny because I have always said that I will live to be at least one
hundred and since people tend to live to 75 that at 28 I am still
relatively young, and that time is on my side, but after having read this
article I think I have a definite fear. I also have all the textbook
symptoms as stated above, so I suppose that what I fear is going after my
dream and not being able to accomplish it. I think also that it would
define me as a dumb person, which is probably why I never checked my SAT
score. Ignorance is bliss right!! What would be a life with no dream or
direction at least as an eternal student I have a positive direction. That
used to be me but now I have found what I want do and am naturally good at
but I still find myself killing my flow. This article helped I just want
to have that unflinching determination that I know I should have.
Mar 3, 2009 6:47 PM
Guest
:
List of phobias and fears Fear of long words and fear of success are
only a few of the phobias and fears that people experience. Let's get down
with the madness of phobias and fears. We promised you an exhaustive list
of phobias and fears, and an exhaustive list of phobias and fears you will
get. This list of phobias include many of the categories used to
describe phobias and fears. From social phobias as common as phobia of
public speaking, to specific phobias like fear of success, passing through
really unusual phobias like fear of long words. Unfortunately we
cannot include all of the phobias and fears that exist, but this list of
phobias is pretty complete:
* Ablutophobia: Fear of washing
or bathing * Anemophobia: Fear of wind * Anthrophobia:
Fear of flowers * Batophobia: Fear of being close to high
buildings * Bibliophobia: Fear of books * Chaetophobia:
Fear of hair * Chionophobia: Fear of snow * Chronophobia:
Fear of time * Dendrophobia: Fear of trees *
Didaskaleinophobia: Fear of school * Eisoptrophobia: Fear of
mirrors * Eosophobia: Fear of daylight * Ergophobia: Fear
of work * Geliophobia: Fear of laughter * Graphophobia:
Fear of writing * Heliophobia: Fear of the sun *
Hemophobia: Fear of blood * Homichlophobia: Fear of fog *
Kainophobia: Fear of anything new * Lachanophobia: Fear of
vegetables * Logophobia: Fear of written words *
Melophobia: Fear of music * Metrophobia: Fear of poetry *
Neophobia: Fear of anything new, again... * Oneirophobia: Fear of
dreams * Phengophobia: Fear of daylight, again... *
Photophobia: Fear of light * Pogonophobia: Fear of beards
* Sciophobia: Fear of shadows * Scolionophobia: Fear of school * Sociophobia: Fear of society or people in general *
Somniphobia: Fear of sleep * Spectrophobia: Fear of ghosts
* Spheksophobia: Fear of wasps * Stenophobia: Fear of narrow
things or places * Suriphobia: Fear of mice *
Tachophobia: Fear of speed * Taurophobia: Fear of bulls *
Technophobia: Fear of technology * Telephonophobia: Fear of
telephones * Thalassophobia: Fear of the sea *
Thanatophobia or Thantophobia: Fear of death or dying *
Tocophobia: Fear of pregnancy or childbirth * Tomophobia: Fear of
surgical operations * Traumatophobia: Fear of injury *
Trypanophobia: Fear of injections
Mar 26, 2009 3:46 AM
Guest
:
This article totally explains what has been going on in my life. I've been
working on my master plan for about three years now. My friends and family
are wondering whats going on with me. Its true that I don't feel that I'm
good enough to meet all my goals that I want for myself. Its even more
uncomfortable to discuss my low self esteem with others because they don't
have a clue that I feel this way. Engaging in self sabotage is easier than
dealing with my true feelings about myself. Unfortunately this behavior is
unproductive and leads to more negative feelings about myself. Thanks for
the tips above. At least the tips provide a framework to begin dealing
with this issue.
Apr 6, 2008
