Unboxing the fear of success: how to blitz it for good

The fear of success – I think I have it.  I recently published an article called the Fear of Failure and 14 Ways to Turn Your Fear into Your Advantage.  It was an article I enjoyed writing, because as I’ve developed as a therapist, many of the issues I refer to in the article are some I’ve dealt with successfully on a personal level. But while writing this article it dawned on me that I think I may have a fear of success!

The fear of failure bit I get. It’s relatively easy to figure out, but trying to figure out my fear of success was like presenting my brain with mental arithmetic (which I’m not very good at). Actually, my brain tends to dive straight into panic mode and goes into automatic shutdown.

Good intentions

I’ve just recently signed up for a course which is designed to help turn me and my business around and lead to the success I’ve been chasing for a couple of years.  The course sounds amazing, providing it delivers on its promises. It cost me a lot more than I feel comfortable with spending, yet if I get out of it what I hope, the investment will be well worth it.

Anxiety and procrastination – yikes!

However, since I signed up I’ve felt a growing niggle within me.  I’ve become tetchier and have even found it more difficult to make bookings for clients to come and see me, even though I love working with my face to face clients.  My procrastination has reached record levels.  I couldn’t work out what was happening to me.  Many of my clients come to me with anxiety related issues and I was beginning to display what I can only refer to as anxiety related issues!  I, as a therapist, was suffering what people pay me to help them with.

Save

I want to grow my business.  I’ve committed to making 2017 the year for making the most of opportunities that come my way.  Already I’ve made some huge personal and professional gains and was feeling quite happy with my progress until I signed up for this damned course.  Heck I only signed on the dotted line a couple of weeks ago!

The paradox of investing in success

So I’m writing this article as a way of self-medicating as well as hopefully helping those of you who may be facing a similar dilemma.  The paradox of this is that I’m investing in something that will generate huge success which is what I’ve been chasing for so long, yet now that it’s within reach, I’m scared stiff of getting there.  Clearly this is an issue I need to resolve, and resolve fast so that I don’t end up sabotaging myself.

So how do we deal with the fear of success?

Out the fear

OK I’ve outed it, very publicly too.  But for anyone who has a niggling feeling deep inside that won’t go away after a good night’s sleep or after dealing with the obvious suspects, it’s highly likely that the feeling is due to a fear of success.  By becoming aware of your fear of success and bringing it into your conscious thoughts, you are already starting to take away the power it holds over you.  However, just outing the fear isn’t going to get rid of it fully, but it’s a crucial first step to take.

Do I deserve it?

Do I deserve success?  I know this is my major fear of success gremlin.  It’s funny.  Sometimes I click on adverts that come through on Facebook or listen to someone’s webinar designed to sell me a product and many times the products or services these people are offering are embarrassingly bad.  So, if they can successfully sell their rubbish, I know that with my qualifications and experience, I can put an effective and possibly even life-changing product together.  I just know I have a hang up about feeling I don’t deserve the success.

Reasons for the fear of success

So, let’s explore what makes people feel they don’t deserve success.  People who feel they don’t deserve success tend to run a self-sabotaging script within their subconscious mind such as:

1. I’m not good enough
2. I don’t like hard work
3. People don’t listen to me
4. I’m not educated enough
5. I’m just little me
6. I’m damaged goods
7. I’ve done bad things in my life
8. Life isn’t supposed to be easy
9. My school report said I could try harder

I think that number 5 and number 8 probably resonate with me the closest and definitely number 9. There are various methods to help dissolve the power of these internal scripts.  One strategy that I use regularly on my clients is hypnosis.  Hypnosis is designed to communicate with the subconscious mind while the conscious mind is put on silent for a while.  However, for this issue, instead of hypnotising myself, I’m going to use EFT tapping.  EFT stands for Emotional Freedom Technique and it helps to free up the flow of energy around our bodies.  For more information on how EFT works, read here. EFT Tapping: What it is and how you can use it.

EFT Tapping

To use EFT tapping effectively you’re going to first need to write down the negative and positive versions of your problem.  So for me I’ll write down:

• “I don’t deserve success because” … and I’ll list all the reasons I can think of.

Next I’ll write down the positive phrase:

• “I deserve success because” … and complete this statement.

It might take a little while to come up with ideas when you are writing your statements, but just sit with the exercise.  You might find it easier to take a break from it for a few minutes to allow your creative side of the brain to kick in to reveal fresh insights.

Once you’ve completed your list, give each statement a value between 0 – 10.  0 = doesn’t affect you much, 10 = affects you badly.  You will start tapping on the issue that holds the highest value for you first.  If they all have the same values just pick the first one as they will all need working through.

The set up phrase

So to make it easier to describe, I’m going to use my numbers 5, 8 and 9 as a working example:

• I don’t deserve success because I’m just little me ….. (7)
• I don’t deserve success because life isn’t supposed to be easy …. (8)
• I don’t deserve success because I could try harder …. (9)

I’ll start with “I don’t deserve success because I could try harder” as that has the highest value on my list.  This self-sabotaging belief could well explain my perfectionist tendencies. Perfectionism can be the enemy of greatness, keeping us locked within a script in which we tell ourselves it will never be good enough.  As Jack Canfield says, author of The Success Principles and one of my favourite books: “Ready, Fire, Aim”.

The tapping sequence

Before you start tapping, remember you can use either hand and either side of the body.  For small areas use one or two finger tips.  On larger areas use your four fingertips.  Tap firmly but lightly.

Start by tapping on the karate chop point of one of your hands.  I would say this:

“Even though I don’t deserve success because I could try harder, I deeply love and accept myself.”

I will repeat this phrase 3 times while tapping continuously on the karate chop point.  Just say the phrase once for each of the following tapping points.

Next I will tap the area just above the middle of one of my eyebrows (either side is fine): “Even though I don’t deserve success because I could try harder, I deeply love and accept myself.”

Next tap on each of the following points saying a shortened version of your statement: “I could try harder.”  You can vary the phrase slightly saying something like “I was always told I could try harder.”  Or “My reports always said I could try harder”.  Don’t get hung up on the words, but make sure you are accessing the negative emotions of the memory that go with your phrase while you are doing the tapping.  This is the most important aspect of EFT tapping. You absolutely need to associate to your internal experience of the memory while you are tapping.

The remaining tapping points:

• Outside side of the eye: Statement
• Under the eye (in the middle just under the curve of the lower eyelid): Statement
• Under the nose (tap in the philrum / groove): Statement
• On the bottom of the chin: Statement
• Just below the knobs of the collarbone: Statement
• Under the arm (on a man it is in line with the nipple, on a woman it is in line with the bra strap: Statement
• Inside wrist point: 3 finger widths below where the hand joins the wrist: Statement
• Top of the head: Statement

Take a deep breath in through your nose, hold it a few seconds, then release gently through your mouth.

Do a second round of tapping, similar to how you did the first.

Review your progress

After the second round of tapping say the full statement again “I don’t deserve success because I could try harder” and score the strength you feel it has now between 0 and 10.  Has it gone down?  Has it gone up?  Did anything else come to mind while you were tapping?  If so, you might want to add that to your list to treat with EFT.  If you find that the figure you associate with the memory has gone up after tapping, just stick with it. It means you’re accessing a memory that has a lot of power. Remain calm and persist with the tapping.

After each round of tapping, reassess how you’re feeling.  Ideally you will have brought the intensity of the memory down to below 5.  If you still rate the intensity above 5, go ahead and do another round of tapping.  If you continue to feel stuck above a 5, you may need to re-word the memory or focus more on the negative experience that is causing you unease to make it more effective.

Once you have brought the intensity down to between 0 and 5 you can reinforce the tapping with a positive statement.

Positive tapping

Tap on each of the points as listed above, but change the statement to something positive such as:

• “I know I deserve success because I do my best”
• “I deserve success because I am worthy”
• “Success is now mine to enjoy because I try hard”
• “I choose to believe I deserve success”
• “I allow myself to believe that I am successful”

Once you have completed one round of positive statements, take a long slow deep breath in through your nose, hold it for a few seconds then release it through the mouth.

Do a second round of positive statements, similar to how you just did them.

Repeat the original statement that was causing you the problem. In my case it is “I don’t deserve success because I could try harder”.  If the tapping has worked, I will be scoring between 0-3 on the arousal the phrase now causes me.

Now I will begin to work through the remaining phrases in the same manner that are causing me problems in my life.

It’s good practice to review this exercise after a few days, just to make sure that the negative emotion really has been removed for good.  Repeat the entire process with your highest scoring phrase just to check that it’s still within the 0-3 mark.

I know this all sounds fairly tedious, but what’s worse?  Allowing your entire life to be tainted by a subconscious belief system or spending a few moments actively getting rid of it for good?  Some things do take effort, but they’re worth it. I can’t imagine you’d be reading this article if you were the type of person who lets life happen to them instead of happening to life.

Will success kill my femininity?

While I was writing out the tapping technique a good friend of mine called me who works in recruitment and has spent a lot of time speaking to women about how they have to change their external appearance to fit in with the corporate world.  This made me uncover another of my fears which I didn’t realise I had up until this conversation. That fear of success is how I might be perceived by the external world which might be at odds with who I am as an individual.  I don’t want to portray an image to the world of someone I’m not. I want my children to grow up knowing that who you are is more important than how you look or what you wear.  Our qualities come from within, not from our external image.

Fear of overwhelm

Another of my fears is the fear of overwhelm. What happens if I get swamped?  I keep telling myself that if, rather, WHEN I’m in the position to hire people to work with me, I’ll be able to free up time to focus on the things I enjoy doing and that I’m good at, but still I have a lingering fear of having to go through that process.  When I think through this logically it makes sense that I’ll have MORE free time than I do at the moment as every waking hour that isn’t involved with my children is spent building my business.  Once I can lay down an effective strategy, surely I’ll be able to free up more time than I can only dare dream of at the moment.

Trusting your friends

I’m lucky that I have a few very good friends.  I enjoy meeting people.  Since I’ve started hosting The Flourish and Thrive Radio Show I’ve been able to interview people I may never have had the chance of getting to know and I love this aspect of the show.  You never know who you might meet and I have a love of understanding different people and how the psyche works.  I’d be in the wrong job if I didn’t.

I have faith in my true friends that if, rather, WHEN! I successfully create and sell my signature product, they will still see me as Kate, but I think it makes making new friends more difficult when you become very successful because they may not have your best interests at heart.

Enter Shakespeare!

As humans we need connection and we need to feel as though we belong.  It must be very hard to maintain a solid foundation when you have people pawing at you because of your success. While I was talking to my friend he mentioned a quote by Shakespeare:

Shakespeare’s quote suggests we all have roles that we play, facades that we wear.  If I can be chosen to be known for one part only, that will be as a mother.  I always knew I wanted to have children, and they have been my best gift and best accomplishment in my life.  I know I’ll never be more successful as I have been in life as raising my two children.  (Self-sabotaging belief?!) They are my passion and my reason for living.  But perhaps I could be AS successful in my business, because essentially my business revolves around human relationships, and my passion for helping humans in need is an ever-burning flame.

It might be that I identify so strongly with being a mother that I may be sabotaging my success as a career woman.  I’m not sure about that.  I think that as my journey continues my life will change in any case.  Eventually my children will leave home and create their own families and so my focus will naturally have to change to a degree.  But I think that as mothers we are continuously faced with the dilemma of weighing up parental responsibility against a career.

The conundrum of success

I’m going to get tapping and make sure I oust my fear of success gremlins, because one thing is certain. We get one chance at this life.  As I move towards my 50’s I’m going to make damn sure that I ditch my self-sabotaging beliefs and get out there and make the very best of my resources.  The course I have invested in has already caused me to review my deepest fears and by doing so is ensuring that I will reach the success I’ve planned on my map. There might be a few twists and turns at achieving my goal, but that’s what life is about.

Keep moving

As one of my good friends explained recently, if there is a donkey at a crossroads and turning left means he gets a bale of hay with added clover, and turning right means he gets a bale of hay with some mouldy grass in it, at least by making a decision, he eats. If he doesn’t like the mouldy grass, he can do something different next time. If he stays stuck at the crossroads, he will starve.  Don’t let yourself starve.  Move.  If you can’t move forwards, move sidewards.  If you can’t go over the hurdle, go underneath, but just keep moving, adapting and fine-tuning.

So success is a conundrum.  It seems to be a double-edged sword for me, and probably some of you too.  And while the coming months are taking me way out of my comfort zone, I am confident that by the time I reach the end of this course, I will have grown into a person I am proud to be.  I will no longer be stuck in the rut I currently find myself in and will be allowing myself to flourish and thrive on a personal, business and spiritual plane.  The vision of achieving my near future is worth the discomfort I am currently experiencing.

Deny regret

Ultimately it boils down to stamping on my gremlins, working out why I’m feeling these emotions, dealing with them effectively with EFT tapping and having the courage to keep putting one foot in front of the other even when I can’t see the way forward.

I’m going to try not to overthink it.  I’m currently going through a process which I expect to have successfully overcome in the next few days.  I don’t want to get into my elderly years and look back with regret.  The pain of that prospect is most certainly more sharp than dealing with the fear of success.

Is the fear of success different for men and women?  What do you think?  What are your greatest fears of achieving success?  What roadblocks have you managed to overcome and how?