Fear of Success
Alison Kent posted at Genreality today about Getting Out of Your Own Way: The Fear of Success.
Why, hello. *waves at self in the mirror*
Good to know I’m not the only one. Of course, I may have no need to fear success, since I keep sabotaging myself so that I’ll never have to try it out. I especially resonated with worrying that anything I accomplish will self-destruct, feeling self-conscious when someone compliments me, and feeling let down or empty rather than celebratory when I’ve finished something. A lot of the time I’m avoiding working on something not because it’s hard but because I’ll have to show it to someone when it’s done. Whether that’s fear of success or failure, I don’t know. Could be both.
Anyone else? What do you fear more, success or failure?
1melissa Cornell
wrote on 31 August 2009 at 19:57
I just posted a very similar post of this very same thing. Good to know I’m not the only one who thinks of these things. My biggest fear is failure. But isn’t it the darnest thing, that we are our own worst critique. We are the ones who hold ourselves back from our dreams, our next leap. The first leap is always the hardest. If i was totally honest, Success scares me only on the level that I have to push myself to always do more and be better…not a bad thing, just the weight of peoples expectations weighs in.
Great post.