Collaborating with the Fear of Success
I’ve been avoiding failure because I fear my own success.
People often talk about deep seated fears of failure and fears of judgement,
but nobody talks about the fear of success.
Culture glamorizes ‘success’ as a one size fits all overlay that will solve all your problems.
- 10k months
- Location freedom
- 4 hour workweek
You’ve seen it all,
but what if its not that?
What nobody asks you is,
“What does success really feel like to you?”
Success might include those qualities,
but what is the underlying feeling that you want to embody through your success?
If you have to think about it, you’re on the wrong track.
Success isn’t an idea, it’s a feeling, an essence.
And every feeling has light and shadow, and nobody talks about the shadows of success.
I fear success.
And I’m stoked to say that I’ve been collaborating deeply with this fear as I learn to embody more and more responsibility that inevitably comes with success.
Its tough inner work and here’s why.
I feared my own success because I feared my own power.
What happens when I completely collapse the space between what is and what could be?
SO much shit comes up.
- My attachment to the small idea of myself.
- My longing to stay in the identity that feels comfortable.
- Anxieties about what people would think of me.
- Insecurity in losing my sense of belonging.
- Inadequacy if I couldn’t sustain the success.
- Fear of the responsibility that comes with success and tricking myself into feeling I’m not ready yet.
These are deep.
They aren’t just fears you think about,
they are fears that are deeply encoded into your operating system.
Not to mention what would happen to your nervous system if you suddenly had a shit ton of money if a a shit ton of money is a part of your blueprint to success.
The fear of success is the fear of actually becoming who you want to become.
Its your fear of your highest self.
You’re damn right your ego and the wounded version of you will try to sabotage that becoming every step of the way.
Its easy to hide inside an idea you have of yourself that keeps a healthy buffer between who you are and who you want to be.
That’s the ‘easy’ route through life, but it still comes with its shit show of insecurity, scarcity, and inadequacy.
The default narrative humans gravitate to is to stay close to the nearest perceived sense of safety.
The nearest sense of safety is usually the limited idea of yourself that you’ve constructed to minimize perceived failure and judgement.
If that’s your life, know that its full well beautiful to choose to live this way,
BUT at best, you will only become a good version of a still limited You.
Its like being the best possible 50% version of you.
It’s the best driving car that only runs on half it’s cyclinders.
Is that how you were designed?
No.
Can you make it work?
Of course, and it shows the brilliance of your resilience,
But are you here to stay in an illusory sense of safety in the ide you have of yourself, or do you want to live more of YOUR life through YOUR blueprint?
Success is a fcked up word in culture today.
We’ve normalized a version of success that’s distorted.
I can’t tell you what success should look like for you,
but here’s a great place to start:
- remove all the fantasy images
- consider the default feeling you want to embody in life. (hint: its not stress)
- focus on that feeling more in your everyday life
- question your inner critic on evolving your idea of self
- allow yourself to act from the blueprint of feeling first.
That’s a kick in the right direction,
Its not the whole blueprint but if you get radically honest with yourself about these pointings you can transform your life for the better in a very short amount of time.