Fear of Succeeding

Have a post today that is a little different than what I have written in the past. Several months ago I was frustrated about not making progress on many projects I had going on. I took a minute to consider the why of the situation and started to wonder if maybe the reason for the lack of progress was because more that I did not want to progress, did not want to succeed, and was sabotaging myself. Why not succeed? Maybe it was a fear of success? Is it possible to be afraid of success?

Turns out, there is such a thing as being afraid of success and is defined as – “Fear of success is the concern that once we achieve something new, we’ll be incapable of sustaining it or may suffer because of it. (https://www.betterup.com/blog/fear-of-success)” Well, this definition makes the condition more real and makes my thought on the topic feel like a real possibility. Reading more, a few more examples that back up the definition “Success may not be all it’s cracked up to be, Success might change you, but not for the better, or You might get extra attention, but you’re shy or introverted and uncomfortable with the spotlight.(https://www.healthline.com/health/anxiety/fear-of-success)”

Well, this sounds familiar, I believe the thought that lead to this quick search was along the lines of “success means that everything will have to change and nothing will be like it is”. Of course things change, but that does not mean that it will be bad or that everything will be different. Come to think on it more, and looking back at it, I have had a lot of success – and not everything changes for the bad.

This post was a little different and shorter than usual, but I had a thought and ended up learning a new term I thought I would share. I have one more new term to share, a post for next week.