Is fear of success holding you back?

Posted on May 16, 2024 by Melanie Cauble, One of Thousands of Life Coaches on Noomii.

Fear of failure is a more commonly known topic. But fear of success is a very real thing as well. Exploring our tendencies to sabotage the things we want can be useful.

What do you imagine success looks like in your case? Sometimes we put it so high on the pedestal, we get neck pain looking up at it. We can imagine a fear of heights at the top, so to speak.

We’ve become so familiar with struggle and strife, and our society has put so much pressure on an ethic of hard work that sometimes we get lost in simply working hard for the sake of being hard working, and the imagined elevation, success, or respect that that entails. Sometimes “success” is envisioned to finally mean not having to work so hard..which has the appeal of rest, but then, oh no, might mean we’re not hard working anymore!

Or it’s a matter of purpose. We’ve been striving for so long, if we finally achieve…then what? What do we do with our lives once we “make it”? It can be scary to not know what that next aim is. Maybe the tension we carry is how we know who we are, and we lose our sense of self without something to strive for.

One “in” to understanding any fear of success you may have is to state the outcome definitively. “I WILL _______”. You will get a sense of how much you believe it as truth, but the fear may pop up and say hello. I tried this around a grant I had applied to. What I thought was a fear of failure and unworthiness was in good part, a fear of all the responsibilities I envisioned would come with my stated goals, and I was shying away from that responsibility!

Once we identify the thoughts that are holding us back, we can make changes. Maybe it’s further defining the goals, becoming more specific, or exploring other ways it could look…or other ways we can get support to not carry the weight of it all by ourselves. Talking about our goals with others can both keep us in touch with our sense of inspiration and clear blocks delaying our process. If you’re interested in having a conversation, reach out to me and we can schedule a time to chat!