dealing with fear of success (or accomplishments)

Fear of success or accomplishments

Fear of success is the kind of fear that prevents you from taking a step towards accomplishing something.

The person who fears success will usually be living with an internal conflict because a part of him wants him to succeed and to achieve some goals while another part wants to hold him back because of the fear of success.

Not only will your fear of success prevent you from making achievements but it will also affect your performance in other life fields.

As a result of carrying this fear your subconscious mind may work against you to prevent you from succeeding!! In fact one of the main reasons you might be experiencing continues failures in other life fields is that your subconscious mind is trying to make you fail because of your fear of success!!!

what causes fear of success?

I always say that you can't fight an invisible enemy. If you want to get rid of something you should first know more about this thing and know about its causes.
The following is a list of possible causes for fear of success:

Fear of making enemies: underlying your fear of success there may be a fear of collecting more enemies because of your success. This fear might be present because of an irrational idea that you learned about success such as “people will hate me if i am successful”.
Fear of loneliness: Another cause for fear of success is the fear of loneliness. Some people think that when they succeed they will be different than their friends and so lose them or end up being alone. again this Is an irrational idea about success.
Fear of being different or fear of being in the spot lights: some people fear success not to be different and so not to lose social approval. they may also fear being in the spot lights because of their lack of self confidence. Those people think that it's better for them to stay unnoticed rather than exposing themselves to others.
Fear of change: fear of change is the fear of getting out of the comfort zone you used to live in. If you have the fear of change then you may fear success too because its one of the things that can bring many changes to your life.
fear of the hard work required to maintain your success after succeeding you will have to work hard to maintain your success. You just might be afraid of this hard work

How to get over fear of success?

Did you notice that there are two common points that could summarize all of the previous "fear of success" causes?

number one: irrational ideas
number two: other fears and not the fear of success itself.

Changing irrational ideas about success is simple but you need to spot them first. After you become aware of those false beliefs you need to use CBT to change them which is a method that can help you change your unwanted behavior by changing your thoughts.

If you failed to do so then you can try to unconsciously remove them by using hypnosis. In both cases you should be focusing on one thing which getting rid of these irrational ideas and as soon you do so your fear of success will disappear.

As for the second point you may have noticed that you don’t fear success itself but you just fear the consequences that will result from succeeding.

Again you should question the rationality of your beliefs and determine whether those consequences are close to reality or not.

If you found that they are irrational ones (like fear of losing your friends or fear of becoming lonely) then remove them using the previously mentioned methods while if you found that they are rational (like having to work hard to maintain your success) then know that those consequences are part of the price you have to pay in order to succeed. Success is expensive so if you are really willing to buy it then you must pay its full price.

final words

Know that fear of success wont let you avoid the pain but it will only lead to accumulating it. One day when you find that everyone around you succeeded you will then be forced to succeed and this time you will be feeling really bad. Don't escape from your problems and conquer your fear of success else you will end up feeling really bad and frustrated.

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