Is Fear of Success Leading to Failure?
Many people who subconsciously self-sabotage experience fear of success. Learn how to welcome success into your life.
Many people fear success. They strive to achieve their goals but subconsciously self-sabotage at the last moment. In this article, you will learn how to welcome success and bring it to life.
I was discussing the fear of failure with a client, and she described how the lesser-known fear of success was the real issue for her and asked for my insights. It seems a contradiction; we assume that whatever we do is driven by the desire to achieve our goals. But the human mind can be unpredictable and often leads us in unexpected ways, sometimes playing tricks on us, such as unconsciously stopping us from succeeding.
What is Fear of Success
It is more subtle than fear of failure, but they both stop us from fulfilling our potential. I imagine it like a switch in our subconscious that turns off whenever we are close to achieving a goal. That ‘something’ stops us from taking the final little step when we are close to success. I will explore how it manifests and what we can do about it.
What does Fear of Success look like?
As I reflected on the subtlety of this fear, I realised that you may not even know if you have experienced it, as it often hides itself behind some other reason. Sometimes, we subconsciously self-sabotage by taking active or passive steps to prevent us from reaching our goals. It can happen in all kinds of situations:
You have set up your business, done all the background work and suddenly get stuck; you need to get out there and pitch to potential clients and ‘something’ stops you.
You have been meaning for a long time to publish a book; you plan it, dream of fame and riches, you write it, and then ‘something’ makes it stay in your desk drawer (or laptop file)
You crave a promotion and work hard, but ‘something’ stops you from talking about your achievements and telling your senior management you want the promotion
You are an athlete, have trained for many years, and are close to the top, always getting to third or second place, but ‘something’ stops you from getting to first place
There are many complex reasons behind these situations’ personal experiences and contexts, such as skills, lack of confidence or timing. However, I focus on this article because of the fear of success, which can stop us from achieving our goals.
Fear of Success manifests itself in many ways.
This fear can easily hide under other circumstances and excuses; some of the ways it can manifest itself are:
Procrastination: We keep coming up with new ideas and finding new activities to delay the crucial moment when we should get out there and do it.
Perfectionism. We keep tinkering with an idea, improving a new service or doing one more project before we believe we are ready to ask for a promotion.
Quitting is the most extreme and easiest to spot. Behaviourally, it is the most interesting, as we start creating a narrative of reasons to justify quitting and convince ourselves that it’s the best possible option.
A related expression we sometimes use is imposter syndrome; we doubt our skills, talents or achievements and are scared of being exposed as a ‘fraud’ who doesn’t deserve success. This auto-fabricated mental model bears no relation to external evidence of their competence. In this situation, we seek to disassociate ourselves from the success we have already achieved.
In addition to the examples and manifestations above, you are likely to have experienced this fear if these questions come to mind when you are close to moving towards success:
If I succeed, what do I do next?
If I succeed, how do I keep up?
Is it about success or the consequences of success?
There are multiple and complex reasons behind our behaviours and variability depending on circumstances. There isn’t one determining factor; however, these are three possible sources of fear of success:
Childhood. Our experiences shape us, and our early years determine our future behaviours. In your childhood, parents or teachers may have set you goals that are either too high or too low. This will develop your subconscious attitude toward success and failure in both cases. Feedback in the form of too-high or too-low praise also determines your attitude today. But fear not; we can create new mental models and modify our behaviours.
The imaginary burden. This is connected with the questions I posed earlier: “What do I do next?” and “How do I keep up?”. These two questions add an imaginary burden and raise the expectations of success, but this is not reality; we create these burdens only in our imagination. They are the ‘something’ we examined earlier when we explored how fear of success manifests itself. Of course, a lot of pressure can also come from the outside and other people’s expectations. A good example is the TedTalk by Elizabeth Gilbert about how disorienting success can be.
Fear of the unknown. Fear takes us into a future of uncertainty, one that we build ourselves and thus includes everything that may go wrong. There is an additional element, which is the worry that our relationships with friends, family, and other people may change. Exercises of visualisation offer a paradox as we imagine ourselves with the promotion, the published book, and the accolade. However, it may not be enough, and I believe visualisation misses an important element that can help us deal with Fear of Success.
Three suggestions to let go of your Fear of Success
As in any behavioural change, so much is about trying things out and finding out what works best for you:
Self-awareness. Examine past experiences, the sequence of events, your reactions and those of the people around you. Notice what it feels, looks and sounds like. Writing it all down and journaling is useful. Identify the behaviours associated with it. It is essential if you want to explore where the fear comes from and childhood influences.
Choose and practice a technique. I also encourage people to come up with a list of options but only choose one. These are some examples of options: change the language you use to describe your success, get an accountability partner and destigmatise the concept of failure. You may also want to acknowledge your inner negative voice, a sentence I have learnt to say is, “Thank you for letting me know about all the bad stuff that may happen; I am going to give it a go anyway”.
Pause and observe the imaginary burdens. Take them one by one, and you will realise they are not as bad as they look. Visualise yourself, but don’t stop at the single moment of success. Visualise everything that comes with it, bring it to life, and make it as accurate as possible. Recognising that success is not perfect will put it into a more ‘normal’ perspective. Visualise achieving your goal and how you will deal with issues that may arise.
Finally, practice your strategy. One at a time, notice your reactions and track/journal them. Remember that the more you fear success, the less likely it will come your way. Your priority is to welcome it. Start with a slight change. For example, I used to struggle with compliments. They made me uncomfortable. A compliment is a sign you have succeeded. It may be about you nailing a critical presentation or your dress at a party. When I received a compliment, I used to ramble on about how the presentation hadn’t been that good, what I forgot to say and so on. Or that the dress was an old rag. Then I tried the simple strategy of saying ‘thank you’.