Success or failure? What is the biggest fear for you? Could it be that what holds you back in life is more about your fear of success than it is about your fear of failure? I've talked a little about the fear of failure, but what about the fear of success? Failure is the more commonly thought of fear, yet can a fear of success be equally powerful, or perhaps even more powerful for some people.
This one is pretty counterintuitive, I agree. It's too strange. Down right Unamerican. What on Earth could be wrong with succeeding? We're told from day one, at least in the US, that success is the standard by which everything is measured. Even if your parents told you it's "not winning or losing," every other segment of society will tell you otherwise. So we grow up with an instilled desire for success. So, the answer might depend more on what success looks like, what expectations are likely to ensue and who
might be offended by your success. These unexpected side effects, that you may not be aware of consciously, can be enough to prevent you from taking action.
For example, if you lose a lot of weight, here are some possible side effects: people will notice and will comment about it, other people will ask you for diet advice, you may feel you need to continue with a permanent lifestyle change to maintain your new weight, you may need to buy new clothes, you may become more attractive to others and thereby attract more social encounters (wanted or unwanted), overweight friends might become jealous, your family may resist your changes, you may feel stressed about whether you can keep the weight off, you may worry about the loss of certain favorite foods from your diet, and so on.
Not a pretty picture, eh? It seems some goals aren't all roses. And reaching them are hell.
Success requires change, and change has both positive and negative consequences. People claim to want to succeed at something, but the reality is that the negatives outweigh the positives for them. You need to think about what those negatives are, and then eliminate them. Eliminate, or accept it and live with it.
You need to focus on the positive side of a goal. And it looks like you also need to occasional delve into the dark side and accept that you’re going to have to deal with that too. There will be negative consequence of your success. Things that are even now bouncing around your subconscious seeking to pull you down.
Unlike fear of failure, fear of success can be far more insidious because it seems to be unconscious. But it’s not fear of success itself that is the problem. The real problem is the fear of the side effects of success. Think of the number of miserable and suicidal lottery winners. The after effects that linger after the afterglow. Fears that are never evaluated consciously can grow stronger. If you avoid taking action because of fear, you reinforce that behavior, thus you make your habit of procrastination stronger. Your inaction becomes harder and harder to overcome. All this can be happening either consciously or subconsciously, but it is happening automatically.
What you NEED to do is ask yourself is: what will happen when I succeed? This will force you to confront these problems. Now your conscious attention is focused on those fears. And fears, like cockroaches, hate the light. They scurry away under it. Your attention will make them loss power, become weaker and allow you to do what you need to do.
Now of course I'm talking about running. But this action can take the form of anything. You need to face your fears of success as you faced your fears of failure. I primarily hope that this will get you off that couch and onto the roads. I've recently read of the large numbers of 20 and 30 year olds that have Type 2 diabetes and am shocked by the numbers in America. Coming from a country and a lifestyle that loves sports, I can not rationalize the situation that is happening in the USA. I can only think that a fear of success is hampering people from being active. It can not be fear of failure. That fear leads to a disabled life and an early death. But fear of success is insidious. You don't know it's there until it's too late. It has robbed you of a longer life and fuller existence.
So get up, shine some light on your fears, overcome the hidden obstacles in your life. I will see you tomorrow on the roads with me.
I'd love to hear from you, so please leave a comment here or drop me
an email at runmadrid@gmail.com.
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