Do you have a fear of success? Most people do not believe they fear success, but many of them would be incorrect. Our lives rarely change because we become comfortable with our situation. We might not like it, but it is comfortable. We know what to expect. We may feel unhappy, but we know we can deal with it.
In a nutshell, most people do not like change and therefore resist it. We also do not like the prospect of failing or of standing out.
Here are some indicators that you may fear success:
- Consistently making plans for your life but fail to follow through on them. Whether it is to start a business, read a book a month, or go for a walk five days a week, you just can’t seem to make it happen.
- You leave projects uncompleted. This includes at work and in your personal life.
- You are all talk. You rarely act on those new projects or ideas.
- You struggle to make decisions.
- Your life never changes for the better.
- You tend to self-sabotage, especially when you are nearing success.
This probably describes many of the people you know. Does it describe you accurately?
Check out these strategies to overcome your fear of success and make real changes in your life:
1. Imagine being ultra-successful.
Visualize yourself being even more successful than you want to be. If your goal is to make $100,000 per year, imagine making $1 million. If you want to lose 25 pounds, imagine getting lean enough that you can see your abs. Do this every night before you go to sleep and every morning when you wake up.
- Make the visualization as vivid as possible. Include all your senses. When it feels uncomfortable, stick with it, and just relax.
- In time, it will feel natural. When that happens, achieving your goal will be much easier.
2. Practice standing out.
Many of us fear success because we do not want to stand out in any way. Somewhere along the way, we learned or decided that it is better to keep our head down than to be noticed.
- There are a variety of ways you can practice standing out in your everyday life. You can dress differently. You might even put on a pair of pink mittens and walk around the mall in the middle of the summer. Or you could wear your best clothes to the store.
- You could go out in public with your hair disheveled.
- You can do something in public that you are either really good or really bad at, like golf or baseball.
3. Reframe failure.
Fear of success might be a fear of failure. Keep in mind that failure is just an undesired result. It says nothing about you. It simply means that you need more practice, more time, or a better approach. When you can view failure in this manner, there is nothing to fear.
4. Focus on action over thought.
We cannot fear success if we do not think. If you need to send 100 emails to find clients for your business, just sit down and get busy. The longer you think about it, the harder it becomes. Just decide and then do it!!
5. Have a real vision for the future.
Enough motivation can overcome any fear. Create a possible future in your mind that is worth overcoming any obstacle. Fear does not matter if you have a compelling future in mind.
Do you fear success? It seems counterintuitive to fear success, but it is a common stumbling block to making sustained progress in life. Success brings attention, the unknown, and the possibility of failure.
Create a vision for the future that will pull you through any fears you might have. Learn to deal with discomfort. Avoid allowing fear to limit your life and hold you back from what is possible.
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