Scared to Succeed, Part 1
To me, one of the most interesting pieces of psychology when dealing with being extraordinary is the fear of success. To be scared of doing badly, I can understand. But to be scared of doing well… where can such a fear possibly come from?
I’m not going to claim to be an expert on the psychology of it, but it’s something which I have a particular fascination with, have had to deal with many times in my own life, and have done a fair bit of research on. It’s often the root cause of many secondary effects such as procrastination, disorganization, and low expectations. In this article I hope to lay out some of the basic principles about what’s happening when you’re scared to succeed. This will lay the groundwork for future articles, when I talk about what to do about it.
What Makes People Scared to Succeed?
There are several different causes for fear of success, ranging from logical to psychological to illogical. Here I’ll cover the most common causes.
Delayed Fear of Failure
This is an interesting one. When someone has a delayed fear of failure, what they’re really scared of is not the problem of being able to succeed… they’re pretty sure they can succeed. What they’re scared about is being able to maintain their success as ever increasing demands are put on them. A person who has delayed fear of failure is actually scared of reaching their limits, so they sabotage themselves from ever getting close.
Teacher’s Pet Syndrome
When this is the root cause, people consciously or unconsciously link success with negative social consequences. Because of past experiences, they’ve learned that doing well can cause them to be singled out from their peers. This causes them to hold back from giving it their all, fearful of what may happen if they surpass others.
But That’s Not Me!
The cause of this fear is an incongruence between what someone thinks they’re capable of and what they’re actually capable of. A person’s conception of themselves is fundamental to how they understand and make sense of the world. They’ll often do anything to protect this image, even if it means holding themselves back from reaching their full potential.
Fear of Diminishing Returns
This is caused when someone is “climbing the ladder” in a particular organization or group. The individual begin to realize that the level of work and responsibility is increasing faster than their incentive to continue the work.
Fear of the Unknown
If you stay where you are, you may not reach your potential… but at least it’s familiar. A person with this is afraid to leave their comfort zone, and the safety of comfort is more satisfying than the thrill of success. To go from known situation to an unknown situation which could possibly be better, OR worse, is simply a terrifying prospect.
Now it doesn’t seem so mystifying, there’s logic to each piece of the fear. Nothing mystifying about it. In future articles, I’ll begin to talk about the faulty assumptions inherent in each of these reasons (after all, most fear is just False Evidence Appearing Real), and how to break through to have the success you deserve.
Till next time,
Matt
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