The Fear of Success

Once again we find ourselves at the beginning of a new year. Some of you may have made a New Year resolution, others may still be deciding. You may be planning to give up smoking, r lose weight, or start that new business you’ve been planning.

Unfortunately, ninety percent of New Years resolutions are never realized. Not because you didn’t make a plan, but because of “fear of success” of those plans.

Home many times have you planned to lose weight, find a new job, or possibly start your own business? You begin making bigger than life plans taking into consideration every known detail. You may go so far as to draft a winning business plan, research the numerous available diet plans, or check the various online job posting boards.

Once you have completed your plans, you revise them, refine them and constantly improve on them. You do this over and over thinking just one more draft and it will be perfect, and you can get started on achieving your goal.

Before long it’s been a year, then two years and before you know it your well and meticulously planned goals have not yet begun the execution phase. You started with the best intentions and your path was clear but you lacked the focus.

You’re not afraid of failure or rejection, and you have a foolproof plan that consists of many interesting challenges, but the truth of the matter is you are unable to turn your plans into reality. This often happens with long-term goals that require long term calls to action, like losing weight or transitioning to start a new business.

This is one area of planning that people never take into consideration while drafting their plans. What will happen if you succeed? Forget about what you hope will happen or what you fear may happen, and consider what may happen once you have achieved your goal and your plans are now a reality.

It is rare that a goal is perfect and has no downside. Success requires change, and with it comes both positive and negative consequences. Often people claim they want to succeed at something, but the reality is that the negative aspects of the execution outweigh the positives experienced from achieving the goal.

To overcome this problem you need to examine the negatives and systematically resolve them, or at least come to terms with them by accepting them.

It may be fun and exciting to focus on the positive aspects of your goal, but don’t forget to take a survey of the darker aspects and accept that you will have to deal with them as well. Sometimes just knowing in advance that you have a plan to handle any negative issues can make all the difference.

Unlike fear of failure or fear of rejection, fear of success can be far more insidious because it is almost always unconscious. However it’s not fear of success itself that is the issue but fear of the side effects of success, many of which may be unwanted.

Fears that are never evaluated have a tendency to grow with age. When you avoid something you fear, even subconsciously, you reinforce the avoidance behavior. As a result of your hidden fear of success, you reinforce the habit of procrastination. As time goes by it becomes harder and harder to stay focused on making your plans a reality.

The interesting thing about these types of fear is that they have a tendency to shrink under direct examination, making it easier to take action. An added benefit of examining your fear of success is that you can deal with the issues you can identify.

One major issue many people have with making their plan a reality is the fact that they may have to leave the security of their current job. The comfort of getting that paycheck on a regular basis can be a very difficult hurdle to overcome and can sabotage their efforts.

Left unchallenged, the simplest problem can be enough to subconsciously sabotage your goals. By examining the situation consciously and planning ahead to deal with obstacles, you can provide your subconscious the comfort needed to make your goals a reality.

Your subconscious is one of your closest allies. It keeps you grounded and attempts to keep you from making mistakes. But you need to question it from time to time to determine why you are not reaching your goals. Treat it as the not-so-silent partner it is by answering its questions and make it comfortable with your goals.