It sounds odd to some people that someone may be afraid of becoming successful. Sometimes, the fear of failure is easier for some to understand, but about someone fearing success? It can sound preposterous!
Someone may ask who doesn’t want to be successful? Maybe it’s you!
The fear of becoming successful is one of the obstacles that can hinder you in obtaining lasting and consistent success. Most people are often great when it comes to working and achieving 90% of their goals, but some throw away their efforts at the last minute.
The fear of becoming successful shows a lot of symptoms and components. You can read more and see if the fear of success is one of the roadblocks that are currently hindering you from achieving your goals.
Some Causes of the Fear of Becoming Successful:
- Fearing too much change. Human beings are programmed to avoid change as much as possible. This can be true even if your life is going into the pits. Why do these things happen? It’s because even if you are unhappy with your life at the moment, the fact that you are still surviving may be more than enough for you.
- Your brain is more concerned about what will happen to you if you employ a change in your life. As far as our cognitive thinking is wired, you are better off being miserable but alive, than the possibility of becoming happier but you will be dead as a result.
- Fear of having more responsibilities. The more responsibilities you have, the higher your success will be. In some instances, you have to take on more responsibilities to become successful. When you start to become successful, many people will expect more from you.
- You might have started a business, and you are already experiencing success, but now, you have employees that you need to consider since they rely on you for their daily wages.
- You might think of building a real estate empire, but you also need to consider debts, tenants, and complicated taxes that you need to deal with.
- You fear standing out from the crowd. Some people love attention, but most don’t. For others, if they start to notice that you are becoming successful, jealousy can creep in, and they will begin to dislike you because of it. If you make others feel that they are mediocre, you can bring out the worst side of them even if you don’t mean it.
- Some people may prefer blending in the background than standing out in the spotlight. Perhaps, this is the same feeling that you have too.
People who fear success can show similar symptoms, and here are some of them:
1.They self-sabotage. Everyone may experience that they are doing great, and they are making a lot of progress in their lives. Then, everything seems to just fall off without any reason. You begin to make poor choices and foolish mistakes. This can be a symptom that is easily visible with other people, but it can be hard to identify them in yourself.
- You suddenly change goals. You are very close to achieving one of your goals and becoming a raving success, but you suddenly decided to change everything and chase another objective. If you frequently change directions in your life, you will have a hard time making any genuine progress. What you can do is to choose a goal that matters so much to you and stick with it until you achieve it.
- You are procrastinating a lot. One of the signs that you are afraid of success is a sudden lack of motivation to do what you have to do. The primary killer of progress is procrastination.
Fortunately, you can manage your fear of success. You can try the following techniques:
- Identify the cause of your fears. Ask yourself about what are the things that you are afraid of? Know the causes and roots of your fear so that you will have the opportunity to work it out. You will not be able to defeat the enemy if you can’t see it.
- Take note of how a particular fear changes your behavior and thoughts. How does fear affect your life? What do you think are the symptoms you have that relate to the fear of success? How do these fears alter your behavior and thinking?
- Learn to face your fears instead of avoiding them. If you avoid your fears, this will result in failure. What you can do is to develop strategies that will help you work around your fear. This way, you can become resistant to the things that you fear. You can get one of your friends to help you or you can do pep talks every day for motivation. You need to do everything that you can to continue the progress that you are making.
If you’re unsure of why success seems to be eluding you, you may consider the possibilities that you are afraid of success. Can you relate to the symptoms listed above? How successful are you right now at this point in your life? Do you think that you are underachieving?
The fear of success can make sense to you if you identify the fear’s source. But it is essential to keep in mind that the things that make sense may not necessarily be the best option for you. You need to know how to overcome your fear of success and start achieving the greatness that you know you deserve.
