When I first started exploring goal setting methods, I kept hearing about this “fear of success” idea. Whenever I’d hear the term ‘fear of success’ I thought how ridiculous that was. I thought I might have the fear of failure, but never would I suffer from fear of success. I wanted to be successful, I wanted to weigh a certain weight, have a decent sum of money in the bank, drive a hot car, etc. I didn’t “fear” getting stuff – in fact at age 19, I’d welcome them with open arms.
However, if you dig a little deeper, the fear of success does creep into my life sometimes. Looking back, I grew up as somewhat of a nomad, moving from place to place. I sometimes have trouble remembering all the places I’ve lived. Some were not so pleasant and affected me for years.
In one of the inner city schools I attended, it was a bad thing to be smart and get good grades. I was picked on verbally and physically assaulted by other kids and and 2 teachers for being the smartest kid in the class. It was ‘uncool’ to do better than the poor kids in the city.
As Jon from Art of Money points out it’s not the outcome of success we fear, we fear the criticism and actions of others. In other words, becoming a millionaire isn’t scary. It’s how the people we love and care for will react to the new millionaire in their life. Will they see us as ‘being too big for our britches?’ or acting better than everyone. Will they beg for money?
You may argue, “Brad, what other people say and think shouldn’t matter.”
Well, that’s true, you can’t make everyone happy. But what people close to us think and say affect our attitudes and actions. To ignore that is reckless. There are hundreds of stories about artists whose families forced them into law school or med school to carry on the family tradition of continuing the family legacy.
“Each man is afraid of his neighbor’s disapproval–a thing which, to the general run of the human race, is more dreaded than wolves and death.” -Mark Twain
Will people really disapprove of you becoming more financially successful? Absolutely. If you have, and someone else doesn’t have, some (not everyone) will communicate negativity. Some will say you are trying to be better than them. Others will complain about how unfair it is you have something they don’t have. And still others won’t see your hard work leading to your success – they’ll just think you were lucky.
These are not fun interactions to have with others. You can come to dread this disapproval and sabotage yourself if these assessments appear to conflict with your inner moral compass.
Awareness is a great starting point for dealing with this fear. You can become aware of what’s really bothering you. Once you do, it will go a long way towards making it past the fear of success. And a simple list is a good habit to develop.
Pull out your goal list and take a look at your #1 goal. In a journal or loose-leaf sheet of paper, write down what it will mean to you and others if you achieve this number one goal. Steve Pavlina asks what will happen if you succeed? While writing out your list, don’t just include the positives. Write out all the negatives as well. Don’t be shy, write down all the fears you can think of.
Once you have these nagging thoughts out on paper now you can deal with them. Take each fear 1 by 1 and answer the following 5 questions as it applies to each fear:
1. Is the fearful outcome possible? This is an important question. Many people fear that by asking for a raise they will be fired from their job or it will lead to a yelling match. Is that likely? If you are asking for a raise, it’s likely you think you have worked hard enough to deserve it. Whatever your fear is, ask if it’s possible to come true. You may be surprised many of them don’t have any likelihood of happening.
2. What would happen to you if the worst happened? This is my favorite. Here you get to wallow in your fears for a bit. Take it to extremes. If your fear of someone criticizing you blows up, then what? Paint the picture to an extreme. Have the criticizer throwing a major hissy fit because you achieved your goal. Silly, isn’t it?
3. Can you live with the negative outcome? Ok, the worst has happened. Are you still alive? Will you be able to live with the hurt feelings?
4. What can you do to change it? Maybe part of your fear has to do with your family abandoning you. It could be you are feeling guilty for spending time working on your goal instead of spending time with them. It could be you just need to tweak your schedule a bit to include others. Or maybe you feel you need to share the wealth by helping them succeed too.
5. Can you go public with your fear? In other words, talk about it with others. By including others you’ll likely get their support. You can also “Go Public” as a way to leverage yourself into action. By admitting your fear to others it will influence you to get over it. You may remember, I admitted my fear of success here on the blog to pressure myself to get busy. It worked.
Working toward your bigger goals in life involves many ups and downs. You’ll have periods of high productivity and times of no productivity. When you are feeling stalled or unable to make progress, consider whether fear is getting in the way. Then apply the 5 questions above to attack them head on and erase them as stumbling blocks.
Technorati Tags: fear, success, motivation
{ 4 comments }
What do you do when your fear of success has made you minimize your successes even in your head and the only things that you see is your mistakes?
Hi Zoe, What I would recommend for someone who is focusing in on her mistakes is to go ahead and write down each “mistake” you made.
Underneath each mistake, write down the lesson learned. You cannot go back and correct the past, you can, however learn from it. Each mistake is a lesson you can use in the future. Once you come to understand this, mistakes lose their power to upset you.
as a developer, I can make tens if not hundreds of mistakes a day. If I learn from the mistakes, each one will make me a better programmer.
Look at it this way, you are probably focusing in on your mistakes to make sure you never make the same ones again. That in itself is beneficial to an extent. You don’t have to make the same mistakes again – isn’t that great? Imagine if you started again from scratch and had to learn things the hard way all over? Aren’t you glad you don’t have to do that again?
I don’t really achieve enough to be fearful of success, lol
Bach, I can definately relate from my younger years. But as time passes and you make achievement more of a habit, then it’s easier to have the fear of success creep in when you are least expecting it to. You just might want to be mindful of it down the road.