Why Your Fear of Success Is Holding You Back More Than Your Fear of Failure
Here's the thing. The only one who decides how you deal with fear is you. And I'm talking about the fear of failure. It's something I hear about a lot from my coaching clients, the fear of failure is holding them back from trying something new taking a risk or taking a step towards their goals.
And it can be paralysing.
I get that. Believe you me, I have had my own fears of failure, my own paralysing moments, my own doubts about my own ability to succeed.
Until I realised, the fear of failure might be the easy hurdle and the one we all know, but actually, what we're really talking about, is being afraid of success.
We've all heard the mantra's of ‘feel the fear and do it anyway!’, ‘it's all in your mind!’, “you can do it!”, blah, blah, blah…, and yet still our fear of failure holds us back. Once you realise that being scared of achieving what you want to achieve is far more real than you think, you are on the first step to getting past it.
Fundamentally, success means change (even if it's the change you always wanted) and change is scary. Like really, really scary. Because if you try something and fail, you just go back to what you knew - you might not be very happy about it, you just slot back into your comfort zone, tell yourself it would never have worked anyway, slip back into your old working habits and old mindset, and things go on as they did before.
But if you try something new and succeed, this means you're heading into uncharted territory. Where things are different. Where things have changed. Where there are lions and tigers and bears – oh my!
Back in 2009, a series of events resulted in a very messy business divorce for me. I lost my business, I lost my income, and I lost all self confidence and self esteem. I was, quite simply, at rock bottom.
At that point I had one of two choices.
Fear Everything And Run
or
Face Everything And Rise?
The easy choice would have been to run. To simply allow myself to be beaten by a series of events I could convince myself were out of my control. To absolve myself of the responsibility of failure. To just, well, give up.
And that was scary. A whole lot of scary. And felt easy. Because there was no challenge in that decision.
So much of who I thought I was had been tied up in a business relationship that was seriously flawed and breaking me, even though I couldn’t see it, in a business I didn’t want to be a part of, and in a location I didn’t want to be in either. So changing all of that was terrifying. What if I make a fool out of myself? What if I couldn’t run a business on my own? What if I simply wasn’t good enough?
What if I failed?
Until I had a word with myself and asked myself - "What if I actually pull this off?"
What if I get this right? What if I can start a business and run it the way I want to? What if I am good enough?
What if I succeed?
GULP.
With low self esteem and confidence, I was scared to do it. I was scared to put myself out there. I felt vulnerable. Not sure if I could handle judgment and everything else that comes with putting myself out there to do it all again.
I was self sabotaging like crazy – doubting myself, questioning myself, failing myself. Finding reasons not to try, not to challenge myself, not to pick myself up and give it another go. Because I knew that I’d still get a pat on the back and a ‘well done, you gave it your best shot’ from those who loved me.
Except, that meant I was in danger of convincing myself that I was putting it all out there and giving it everything I’d got even though I knew deep down that I wasn’t. I’d still get all the pats on the back and could walk away from it knowing "it just wasn't meant to be." Then I could go back to what I knew – I could keep making excuses for why I didn’t get something done, why my goals were unachievable, why simply being mediocre was good enough. I could just Fear Everything And Run.
Self sabotage at its very best. And the thing is, we don’t even realise we are doing it half the time.
So what do you do about it?
There isn't a magic solution, but simply knowing that you could be sabotaging yourself is half the battle. The next time you are confronted with a new thing and face that fear of failure, don’t think about what might happen if you fail. Think about what might happen if you succeed. Where would that take you? What opportunities would it create? How would it move you towards your goals and ambitions?
It probably won’t be easy. It will probably challenge you. It will most likely scare you. But it could also be the best thing you ever did.
Fear Everything And Run
or
Face Everything And Rise?
The choice is yours.
I can bring you, your brand & your business into alignment and heading in the right direction. I can help you face everything and rise. Book your FREE mini coaching session now and let’s get started.