Fear of Success?

I came across an article about Fear of Success—and overcoming the Fear of Change or the Fear of Failure.

It discusses the fact that when we’re too afraid to take risks and move forward on our goals — either consciously or unconsciously — we get stuck in one place, neither moving forward nor backwards.

The article made me wonder if that was what was happening to us and our book project…

It sure feels like we’re not moving. 

For example, we had our weekly meeting and went over our list of things that still has to get done.  Sadly, we’ve made no progress on any of them.

Our first book is still with the graphic artist.  Katherine hasn’t gotten back to reading the rough draft of the second book yet.  Nothing’s going on with the play, the website, or the business license.  The release of the short story is tied to the first book, so I can’t move on that until the first book gets out.  

On the other hand, Katherine was involved with and was a presenter at a 4-day retreat, this week—so, her time was consumed with that activity.

And we spent our meeting-time reviewing how her presentation went, which helped generate some conceptual outlines for future workshops.   

 

So, even if it might seem like we didn’t make progress on the book project, I’d like to think that we’re creating a solid foundation that will help with the promotion of the book, whenever it does get published… in my humble and optimistic opinion.

But…. am I just rationalizing our behavior?

So, I checked out the signs — or red flags — of Fear of Success… just to see if they described either Katherine or myself…

Red Flags of Fear of Success

• You feel guilty about any success you have, because others around you haven’t had the same success.
• You don’t tell others of your accomplishments.
• You procrastinate on projects, especially projects that could lead to recognition.
• You compromise your goals to avoid conflict with others.
• You self-sabotage your work, saying you’re not good enough to achieve them.
• You feel that you don’t deserve to enjoy success in your life.
• If you do achieve success, you won’t be able to sustain it.  Eventually, you’ll fail and end up in a worse place than before.

Well, looking at the list, the only one that could possibly describe Katherine is procrastinating on this project, but I don’t believe it has ANYTHING to do with Fear of Success.  It has more to do with how much other stuff she’s juggling, and where this project falls on her priority list.

As for me, I’m struggling with impatience more than anything else.  I’ve done as much as I can and, now, have to wait for others to do their part. 

Looking at the “solutions” to conquering the Fear of Success, I’m even more confident that this isn’t our problem.

Basically, the article suggests that you face your fears and analyze them rationally.  Create backup plans that address your fears.  By doing these things, you can weaken those fears, which will dramatically reduce your reluctance to achieving your goals.

Also, always maintain your integrity as your top goal.  By doing that, you will always make the right choice.

And we’ve got all that covered, so... yeah… no... 

It’s not Fear of Success that’s slowing us down…

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