When you achieve at a new level, do you wait for the bad news that you’re over-paid or over-rated? Do you feel you don’t deserve the rewards of your hard work, or that you stumbled into it and you could easily plummet from the new height? Fear of success may cripple the dreams of more men and women than fear of failure. Grabbing success by the scruff of the neck and harnessing it to serve you is not the purview of a tiny cohort of the embarrassingly lucky. It’s a tool that can be picked up by anyone who’s willing to learn to use it. Bill Whittle and Alfonzo Rachel help you conquer fear of success.
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11 replies on “O, No! I’m Living My Dream!! How Fear of Success Cripples Your Future, and How to Conquer It”
The word comfort I would exchange with duty.
There are some things I could not let go and comfort or predictability is not the word I would use to define the situation I had found myself to be in.
I prayed and gave of myself and Our Lady pulled through for me. She did in one week what I couldn’t do in seven years. The moment I asked and actually admitted my defeat by my own efforts, the landscape began to change. My struggle and perseverance began to show its fruit.
The world might speak of me differently, but the love and opinion of my children matter more to me than what the crowd superficially would see.
Rocks In The Road
Here I am
Stumbling, when I should be sailing
Crawling, when I should be running
Crying, when I should be laughing
The road ahead, wide open and smooth
The goals, so clear and tempting
The journey so easy, if I just allow it to be
EXCEPT,
The rocks I throw in my own road
Holding me back, slowing me down
Making difficult the things that should be so easy
The mural that is the rest of my life
Still just a blank white wall
With ghostly outlines traced in places
A hint of what lies ahead
Waiting for the color and texture
That comes with the living of it
A blank slate
A white wall
Except for the rocks
Thrown there by myself
Hanta Yo !
Clear the way
Quit creating my own hurdles
Quit holding myself back
SEE the picture
LIVE the colors
FEEL the texture
BE ALIVE AGAIN
The man inside wants out
Kindness and warmth live here
Music and laughter live here
The mural
Hidden, but still real
Waiting to be revealed
Hiding behind the rocks
The rocks in the road
John L. Post
02-06-05
“comfortable or happy” …
The inability to define “happy” causes many to stall at “comfortable”.
One cannot travel to a destination that they cannot locate.
I guess I never understood this.
So I’m listening. When we got to the part where you were talking about your former classmate … it sounds like maybe it’s another form of insecurity. If I’m successful, people will look at me and maybe under their scrutiny they’ll find I don’t deserve it. Like with the “bread falling from the sky” thing. Yeah, it’s great, but they know it shouldn’t be happening. They have no control over it. If you produce your own stuff, you have control over it. If it’s coming from others, be it food or adulation … if you are not producing “the thing”, the continuation of “the thing” is out of your hands.
To the “not looking forward to it anymore” part, that’s the dopamine cycle. Dopamine is the “what if?” hormone. The “thrill of the unknown” hormone. The one that makes us try new things.
And once you get there… if you have no further dreams … you may look around and find …
Talking Heads – Once in a Lifetime (Official Video) – YouTube
Bill, is it comfortable or feeling secure?
I watched Five Came Back about the great movie directors – the most successful in their time – Capra, Wyler, Huston, Stevens, Ford, getting excited to participate in being part of documenting what was going on in WWII, knowing they could be risking their lives!
What an incredibly tough group of gifted men who were not obsessed with fear of failure or success. Directors had to have big egos to go on and film the iconic movies they eventually made, what we call classsics today. They gave the impression they didn’t even concern themselves with what people would think of what they were doing. What a super courageous group of artists!
Perhaps one fear of success is that you become a public figure and people can then see the real you.
Reminds me of a line from a song: “I’ll leave you with your misery, a friend who won’t betray”.
Also liked Alfonzo’s description of when people meet him in person and their expectations. I lead a small group (1.5K members) and when people meet me in person they seem to want me to radiate wisdom or brilliance or something. I always feel like I’ve let them down. But I am who I am. I have moments of great insight and clarity, and a lot of mental meandering. So be it.
Having lived in DC when Barry O first came into office in January 2009, there was a pretty cool electricity in the air, but it got to the point of being creepy & bordering on idolotry
“Your fantasy, to be locked away and still believe you’re free”
-Ronnie James Dio
Success is the progressive realization of some worthwhile dream or goal