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Fear of Success – Fight It!

“A successful man is one who can lay a firm foundation with the bricks others have thrown at him.” – David Brinkley.

Many people probably read the title of this post and thought what in the world is this dude talking about. How can one be afraid of his own success?

Many people strive to become rich and financially stable, however money and success are not the same. Majority of people think that the whole meaning of life is to buy a house on the beach, Ferrari in the garage, and multiple apple martinis served with little umbrellas is it. Am I right?

Even if financial stability is your thought of success still there are things that will make it difficult for you to achieve it. In this post we will talk about “Fear of Success“.

Everyone has to be afraid and is afraid. Fear – is a primitive instinct that helps resisting unsafe conditions of life. Fear is always there when we encounter something unknown and even known to us but not fully understood by us. Sometimes we even know and understand it and still fear it. The paradox here is that fear of failure and fear of success are two sides of the same coin. This makes it difficult since a person instead of enjoying the process itself, but the results from it and the social status. The social status is the biggest evil, we are not afraid of ourselves as much as opinion of others – what will they think, how will this look, what opinion of me will be formed after my action – hundreds and thousands of questions are born in our head because of the fear of others’ opinion.

Let’s try to take it apart, what do we do with the tricky thing like fear of success?

If you look around yourself, you will see many people, programmed by themselves to fail, – usually those are with little initiative, avoid responsibilities or set overly high and unrealistic goals, when at the same time not analyzing and evaluating their abilities.

Focused on success – confident in themselves, rely not only on their own knowledge and skills, but also on a chance and common sense.

Problem here is that for many people failures become their life style. A habit to fail is a tough one to break. A person has to understand, that success, in itself, is not more difficult than failure. This is just a different way of programming yourself.

When a person learns to direct himself to achieve success, he will certainly get it.

This is unavoidable, it’s a fact, it always was, is and will be!

Blocking himself from success, a person finds all sorts of excuses.

Excuse: I am too young!

Tell this to Steve Jobs, founder of “Apple”, who earned his first million at 23, his first 10 million at 24 and his first 100 million at 25. Of course the lack of experience can be compensated by bravery, spiced up by intuition, and topped off by originality. Many successful people started without any experience and learned doing their business.

Excuse: I am too old!

Everyone has their star moment and everything has its time. The second half of life, when many think only about retirement, can become the time of great flourishing of that tree, which you planted when you were young. Hard work doesn’t kill, laziness can. People leaving for retirement often die sooner than those who continue working when they grow older.

Excuse: I don’t have the capital!

The majority of people don’t have it. In order to start your journey to success, you need not the money but creative idea and positive attitude. Every person has at least one talent, passion, hobby, which can start bringing profit when used right.

Excuse: I am not educated!

Yes, Thomas Edison left school before he turned 16 years old. Many successful people  don’t have formal education but have deep knowledge in the area of their business, where they made their fortune.

Excuse: I don’t have a talent!

Many people who achieve success, at first didn’t seem to have any signs of the future fame and riches. Every person has some kind of talent. When we discover our gift, the development of this gift must become our main goal.

Excuse: I am afraid of success!

Everyone of us from birth is afraid of two things: falling and loud noises. Everything else is learned and gained throughout life. Unfortunately, fear of success is very strong, as a result of previous failures and the lack of confidence.

It’s clear that by doing nothing we cannot fail. But also we will not succeed either. Success is always a result of definite actions and positive mentality. Adison, working on the electrical lamp, made 10,000 failed attempts. Abraham Lincoln, before becoming President of the United States, lost in 18 elections. Let’s look a little bit deeper into his history so we can better see and maybe feel his will power:

His life is one of the brightest demonstrations of phenomenal success, made with his own hands.

Abraham Lincoln was born on February 12th, 1809, in the poor farmer’s family. All of their well being depended on a tiny piece of land where his parents worked day and night. American farmers of 19th century had to daily face many dangers from outside. Attacks by Indians, epidemics, and draught often made them move from place to place. This didn’t prevent Abraham from getting his elementary education. His natural curiosity and excellent memory combined with constant desire to learn has helped him in his academic success.

Lincoln achieved everything himself:

• At 20 he suffered failure in business
• At 22 he suffered defeat in elections for Congress
• At 24 he suffered another failure in business
• At 26 he suffered a loss of his loved woman
• At 27 he suffered a nervous breakdown
• At 34 he suffered a defeat in elections for Congress
• At 36 he suffered a defeat in elections for Congress
• At 45 he suffered a defeat in elections for Senate
• At 47 he suffered a defeat in elections for Vice President
• At 49 he suffered a defeat in elections for Senate
• At 52 he was elected President of the United States

Did you analyze the series of failures of Abraham Lincoln? At the achieved what he wanted and left a huge mark in the history of mankind! After reading this, would you like to say that you cannot do something? Yes, if after a few failures you give up – you are weak – accept this fact and live free.

Why do you still suffer failures? Maybe because you want them on the subliminal level? Ask yourself, why did you sentence yourself to mediocrity. You maybe will be shocked to see how great your internal resistance to success really is. Maybe, there is something, that when you were little used to fill you up with enthusiasm and energy, but was cruelly critiqued by parents or friends. However, now you are older, and there are no reasons to stay unheard and invisible – only one detail – nobody told your subliminal mind this fact.

Let’s try to look at failures from this angle: we have to look at them like we are looking at the stairs, that get us closer to our goal. Doesn’t every failure have a valuable lesson in it? In essence, such thing as failure, doesn’t exist at all – it’s just a part of your journey to the unavoidable success.

What comes with success, and what brings success?

• Striving for changes. Dynamically changing world presents huge opportunities. However, many people take changes as threats.
• Satisfaction, honor, passion – these are musts in order to have people see you as a successful person.
• Ability to pause, interchanging rest and work. Ability to take depression as a needed pause for new creative bursts.
• Ability to believe in self allows to accept self without humiliation and constant pounding on the same thing. This will will not allow focusing on past failures. Force yourself to move forward, keep moving no matter what.
• Organization of external support. The best way to overcome our existing fear of success – is knowledge. To have the information about the current situation and to act accordingly, consult with professionals in the area – these procedures help combat fear, so you can start acting.
• Creative activities. This is the best way to fight your fear of success – is its individual analysis. Acknowledging that something wrong is happening to you, is scary by itself. However, when a person gets to know himself better, he clearly sees his strong and weak sides, and the fear has no chance for victory, and desires and abilities receive the needed freedom.

How to help yourself to fight fear of success and win:

Get a clear piece of paper and write three successful projects from your past, which also created some problems along the way.

When describing one of those projects, especially focus your attention on problems, which were caused by success. Take examples from your most bright memories. Call everything as you see it. This will give you an idea about how, when, and where your views of negative attitude towards success was born.

While writing these three projects, notice your psychological and physical condition. Physical: Are you tense? Discomfort in your stomach? Discomfort in your neck? Breathing differently? Faster? More nervous? Psychological or emotional: Are you experiencing the pain all over again? Are you feeling the fear? Anger? Hostility? Awkwardness? Shame?

Analyze and make conclusions.

Answer the following simple questions for yourself:

What does it mean to “achieve success”?

• When you feel it yourself?
• When ou see that others around you feel it?
• When you achieve what you wanted?
• When you are happy, and at the same time opinion of others doesn’t matter?
• When you didn’t achieve everything you want, but at the same time you are self efficient and can control your desires?

What is success and failure, everyone has their own scale of success when measuring themselves, or what’s even safer – measuring someone else, we do this excellently. We have this scale, measuring up to which, we make our verdict. We create this scale from bunch of stereotypes, from person to person they are different, but there are many similar general features – which we cannot avoid, since we all live in one society.

These very, endlessly abused stereotypes, – are the indispensable and everlasting element of human consciousness, not one person is able to independently react to all situations he encounters in life. When at the same time stereotypes give person a collection of criteria, which lets him determine, how to act, to understand, “what’s good and what’s bad”, and also to judge about, what is success in this given system of values.

Every person has his own understanding about happiness, and that point of achievement of happiness is succcess.

I wish you happiness!

Beck @ ProfitSEO.com

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