Are You Afraid to Succeed?

It might sound ridiculous, but you might be afraid to succeed. Do you often self-sabotage? You may not realize it at the time, but you can actively but unconsciously fight against your own progress in a bid to sabotage your success.

It’s counter-intuitive, yet it’s a real problem that a lot of people face. You’ve probably seen it in your own colleagues and friends, and never moved the lens of reflection to yourself to ask yourself the question – am I afraid to succeed?

How can you identify whether you are afraid of success? If you are, how can you overcome them?

Signs You’re Afraid To Succeed

• You struggle to complete projects, whether it’s at home or at work
• You talk about your plans more than you take action.
• You’re always second-guessing yourself.
• You never focus on one project or task, instead working on several at a time.
• Your vision board hasn’t changed in the last few years.
• You’ve never met a distraction you didn’t like.
• You convince yourself that your work is never good enough.
• As soon as you’re on the verge of success, things start to fall apart.

How To Handle a Fear of Success

Those are some of the classic symptoms related to fear of success. It doesn’t mean that you don’t want success. You have worked your socks off, you’ve spent late nights thinking about your plans. Subconsciously, when success doesn’t come easy, it makes you not want it.

Since your subconscious is the one running the show, it’s important to take a deeper look at this issue.

Selling Out

Our relationship with money is complicated, it’s a symbol of what you can get, what you want, and it’s woven tightly with our integrity. Sometimes, the idea of success is tied to what we view as selling out. You don’t want people to think of you as being over-ambitious, selfish or a sellout. So, your underlying fear is rooted in how others see you.

Here’s the thing – the people that truly matter to you won’t see you that way. No one else matters. You cannot be liked by absolutely everyone, it’s just an impossibility. It doesn’t really matter how great you are, there will always be people who dislike you. You can’t let that detract you from your focus.

Standing Out

Another common cause of the fear of success? Standing out. You have probably had a bunch of incredible ideas and had you opened your mouth and spoke on them you’d have stood out. You knew your ideas were good, but you were too afraid to open your mouth and make those suggestions. Instead, you sat tight-lipped during your meeting and let others suggest lesser ideas.

You convince yourself that speaking up isn’t worth the effort and that you don’t want the attention. The truth is that you’re afraid to be exceptional, choosing to blend in instead. There’s no rejection in blending in. There’s no risk of alienating people when you blend in.

You aren’t really afraid of inadequacy, you’re afraid of being recognized for your amazing talents because it gives you more to live up to.

Change

Change might be a natural part of life, but most of us don’t really like it. With success, comes change. It might be that a promotion takes you to a new location or perhaps you have to move to a new company in order to progress. That’s stressful, it’s scary, and the idea of such a change can be enough to make you avoid success altogether.

Success brings change and it takes us into uncharted territory. It can be liberating, too, but often we see it as tedious and scary. However, since change is inevitable you should start out by thinking about what you really want from life. Every step you take from here might bring change, but it’s a change that you desire. Remember that.