Do You Fear Success?

Fear of Success

I was working with a client recently, and the challenge of having “fear of success” came up. This happens a lot for many people, and to me personally as well. What seems more obvious to most of us is the fear of failure—being afraid to fail, so we don’t try. This is what our society often focuses on when someone avoids the actions they need to take to achieve their goals. The irony here is that we ultimately fail when we do not try. Since we are in the process of avoiding and, ultimately, not succeeding (or failing), then we must not fear this failure—so what can the real fear be? 

It’s the fear of success. You might be wondering, “why would we ever fear something that is positive and that we actually think we want?” Well, we don’t truly fear our own success. We fear other people’s definitions of success applied to us. This fear comes into play when we don’t actually know what success means to us—when our definition comes from our parents, family members, friends, social media, movies, peers, etc. Everyone’s definition of success is very unique, and no one definition will feel right to you until you define it for yourself. 

What Is Your Definition?

The one similarity that may come through in these definitions is a sense of freedom and fulfillment. This is because when you are truly feeling both free and fulfilled, you will feel successful, whether it be just in that moment or for the rest of your life. Popular culture pushes concepts like achievement and “winning,” and while these are in fact “good” things, they don’t mean much if they are not aligned with your core values and goals. If you are achieving in a job that is totally unfulfilling to you, for example, you will not feel successful. In such cases, this may reinforce any fear of success that we already have.

Just as an animal fears danger, so do we, and our higher level of consciousness allows us to fear things more complex than just physical threats. We see how others live “successful” lives (by their or society’s accepted and approved standards) and we can actually be so repelled by their lifestyles that we begin to fear things that we equate to their success. The more this happens, the more we begin to resent “success” as well, until we create and embrace our own definition.

It is important that we do not look at and idealize what others see as successful, and that we turn within to ask ourselves what it would take to make us feel successful in life. For some people, freedom is working at a job they Love. For others, freedom would be not working another day in their lives. For some people, freedom is having a billion dollars. For others, it is having nothing at all. 

Peace Pilgrim

To illustrate just how different people’s definitions of success can be, I would like to talk a little about a woman who went by the name Peace Pilgrim. She was a person who gave up her worldly possessions to walk across the United States for 28 years, speaking with others about peace. She wore a jumpsuit that said “Walking for Peace” on the front, and “25,000 miles on foot for peace” on the back, and she lived quite successfully throughout that time on the kindness of strangers. 

In her words, “Unnecessary possessions are unnecessary burdens. If you have them, you have to take care of them! There is great freedom in the simplicity of living. It is those who have enough but not too much who are the happiest.” Her joy came not from the material excess that society fixates on—rather from her own spiritual journey and her mission of spreading peace to others. 

While reading her book, you will come across the story of her one night staying in the luxury of an elegant home with a wealthy stranger who offered her food and shelter, and then the next night sleeping on the concrete floor of a gas station with newspapers for blankets. She was comfortable in both conditions, because she truly felt free and fulfilled. She did not have attachment to the physical comforts of the world.

Find Your Success

Now, I will admit that I don’t personally want to be sleeping on gas station concrete. That’s not the point here—it’s that you cannot measure success on any metric other than your own perceived level of freedom and fulfillment. Any pursuit to prove oneself to others through achieving a stereotypical version of success will ultimately be futile and disempowering to you. 

So please, remember not to worry about how “successful” you are to others. The only thing that matters is that you are pursuing your own sense of freedom and fulfillment. It may take time to find out what this exactly is for you or what it even looks like, and that is ok. Be gentle with yourself (see my blog on Gentle Firmness), and pursue your own unique definition of success.

When you proceed in this way, you will feel more gratitude and less anxiety, because you will intuitively know that you are on the right path for yourself. I wish you all the best success this world has to offer, and the type of success that you can and will truly appreciate. 

Much Love,
Noel Neu, The Songwriting Therapist™