It’s common to assume people don’t try to succeed because they are afraid of failure. Yet, more people fear success, which is why they don’t try to achieve their goals or realize their dreams.
Fearing success more than failure seems counterintuitive. After all, we are taught from an early age to pursue success—whatever that looks like or means to each of us—and to view it as a positive outcome of our efforts. Yet, the fear of success is a real phenomenon rooted in complex psychological factors that lead to self-sabotaging behaviors and, ultimately, failure.
The #1 Reason You Fear Success
While a variety of beliefs underlie the fear of success, one specific fear holds people back the most: a fear of realizing their potential—their “greatness” and “power.” Claiming to fear success says you are afraid to be the best version of yourself. You are fearful of experiencing and sharing your uniqueness, abilities, and gifts with others. You are concerned about the consequences of fully realizing your human potential.
Along with this, you are afraid to exercise your inherent creative power—the ability to manifest what you desire (including success). Rather than demonstrate that power to yourself and others, you tamp it down.
When you do your best to achieve your human potential, you will inevitably demonstrate your creative power—and the results of doing so. And you will display your greatness in whatever life arena you choose.
You are Afraid of Your Power
Marianne Williamson’s famous quote from her book A Return to Love, speaks to this idea. She wrote:
“Our greatest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our greatest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.”
We are not afraid of failure. We are afraid of demonstrating our power as creators.
If we are powerful creators, it’s difficult to justify to ourselves or others why we fail. It’s challenging to explain why we haven’t realized our dreams, achieved our goals, and created the life we desire.
We have to take responsibility for ourselves, including our actions and inactions. We must acknowledge that we are responsible for both our failures and successes.
Some people also worry about how they will use that creative power—for good or bad. But mostly, we fear the knowledge that we created our own success — or failure. We create our results.
You are powerful beyond measure and create whatever matters most to you. Indeed, you are a creator, and when you create your success intentionally—when you demonstrate your greatness—you fulfill your potential.
Other Reasons You Fear Success
Knowing you are a powerful creator—and that realizing your potential means stepping into that power—can seem scary. Underlying this primary fear of success, however, lie many others. The following offers a list of the primary reasons you may experience this fear.
1. Fear of Visibility
Success often places you in the spotlight. The fear of being seen or becoming visible can trigger anxiety about expectations, judgment, and scrutiny.
In fact, being noticed as someone successful can feel more uncomfortable than remaining unnoticed because you are average or even mediocre. You may feel safer as an unseen failure than a visible success.
2. Fear of Responsibility and Accountability
Success often leads to increased responsibility, and many people don’t want more responsibility because they want to avoid stress and overwhelm. Thus, the fear of having to manage new responsibilities can deter you from striving for success.
You might fear that success will require a higher level of accountability for your actions. Or you might be afraid that more people will need or rely on you if you succeed. So, you avoid that accomplishment.
3. Fear of Letting People Down
Success often leads to being seen as an influencer, mentor, or role model. This puts pressure on you to live up to others’ expectations. The weight of these expectations can feel intimidating, leading to a preference for the perceived safety of failure.
Success also can raise your expectations for yourself. The pressure to maintain or exceed past accomplishments can create anxiety and a fear of not living up to your own expectations (as well as those of others), leading you to avoid success altogether.
4. Fear that You Aren’t Good Enough
Many people want success but don’t feel they are capable, worthy, or deserving of achieving it. This creates an internal conflict between self-perception and actual capability or possibility.
Often, this manifests as Imposter Syndrome, which is when you fear being uncovered as a fraud or people discovering that you aren’t who you say you are, are not good at what you do, or are not as deserving of success as you seem. Many people struggle with feelings of inadequacy despite their achievements. The fear of being “found out” or the belief that one doesn’t deserve their success can be paralyzing, leading to a preference for the comfort of failure over the anxiety of success.
Self-doubt prevents you from pursuing your potential and embracing the power and greatness that Williamson describes.
5. Fear of Going Against Cultural Conditioning
In many societies, children are taught to downplay their successes and achievements. You may believe that stepping into your power and greatness—fulfilling your potential—violates social norms or expectations.
If your family members have historically not achieved their potential or any degree of success, you might feel disloyal by succeeding. Your family conditioned you to play small, so you do that rather than rock the boat and play big. You fail to be like your family, and therefore, remain accepted by them.
6. Fear of Change
Success often brings significant changes—new responsibilities, lifestyles, and expectations. It sometimes requires change, such as adopting new habits, skills, and mindsets. Most people, however, do not like change.
Your brain—specifically the reptilian part of the brain—will always tell you not to change. It views change as life-threatening, even though in most cases it is not. That’s why your head is filled with thoughts of all the reasons why you don’t want or shouldn’t change—even though part of you realizes change will benefit you—and help you succeed.
Maybe you fear the unknown that accompanies success. In this case, you prefer the familiarity of your current situation, even if it’s not ideal or uncomfortable.
7. Fear of Isolation
Success can shift relationships. Friends or family members may feel envious, different, or distant when you move past their own level of success. If they are not operating at their full potential (or trying to do so) and you are, your success can make them uncomfortable.
Many people are afraid that their success will lead to lost friendships and connections. This will leave them feeling isolated and alone, and they want to avoid that outcome.
8. Fear of Judgment
Achieving success can attract criticism or scrutiny, so you might fear being judged for your achievements, for who you have become as a result of your accomplishments, or even for the choices made to attain your success. If you have this fear, it’s no wonder you fear success.
Sometimes the judgment comes from within. You judge yourself for surpassing family standards, not achieving the next level of success, or having to deal with the negative results of success.
Also, you may have an all-or-nothing mindset. In this case, you believe success means you must be the best. You judge yourself for not continually attaining that designation or achieving perfection. This unrealistic standard can cause anxiety and lead to avoiding success to prevent disappointment. It can also stop you from pursuing success in arenas that you don’t think are characterized as “the best.”
9. Fear of Identity Shift
Maybe you tie your self-worth to your failures rather than your successes. If so, you may fear that achieving success will force you to alter how you see yourself or what you believe about yourself.
You’ll need to change your identity from “I am a failure” to “I am a success.” And you fear changing your identity will be uncomfortable and cause you to experience many of the fears mentioned above.
10. Fear of Losing Control
Success can make you feel as if you have lost some control over your life or circumstances. You may believe that success leads to other people dictating your time, attention, and next moves. This can make the prospect of success feel overwhelming and understandably scary, since no one likes to lose any degree of control over their life.
You are Afraid to Achieve Your Potential
Many people underestimate their potential because they are afraid to achieve it. They don’t believe they are creative, powerful, or great. They deny this possibility rather than face their fears of success.
If you are one of these people, you struggle internally to acknowledge your strengths, gifts, abilities, creative power, and potential…simply because of your fears of showing up in all your glory and achieving your dreams and goals.
Understanding these fears provides a first step toward overcoming them. By recognizing the underlying factors that contribute to your fear of success, you can work on reframing your beliefs about success.
Ultimately, Williamson’s message encourages you to confront and transcend your fears. Her words help you recognize that you can realize your human potential and, by doing so, liberate yourself. When you decide to be your best self and demonstrate all that you are and can be, you break free of your fears and patterns of self-sabotage.
Then, you can move toward fulfilling your human potential and experience the positive effects of your power and greatness. You can finally succeed—and enjoy that success.
Do you fear success more than failure? Tell me why in a comment below. And please share this post with those who might benefit from reading it.
Image courtesy of mangostar.
