You have a goal that you think you want to reach, but you just don’t seem to be taking enough action to reach it. Does it sound familiar?

Quite often just before our dreams are about to come true, it suddenly feels hard to concentrate, you find yourself procrastinating over things you know will lead to success, you say something stupid in an important meeting … you start second-guessing your options.

All of these are classic symptoms of fear of success.

You aren’t really afraid of failure or rejection, in fact from the time you were a small kid, you learnt to cope with and deal with failure. Everyone has faced failure many times. It’s not that scary as everybody thinks.

On the other hand, having to deal and cope with success is never as thorough or as frequent as failure. In our success-oriented culture, we don’t give much thought to the fact that success can be downright scary.

It’s more comfortable to stay in a familiar situation, even if it doesn’t feel great on the surface. But achieving success means you are entering unknown territory. You are putting yourself out there to be scrutinized and criticized, and exposing yourself to new pressures and demands.

Behaviors of Success-Fearing People

You don’t complete your projects and furiously do several things at once, not really focusing deeply on any one of them.

The thing is, when you are able to focus, plan and get things done in an orderly manner, you typically succeed. Success happens when people work energetically and avoid burn out. Limiting yourself to what you can work on with enthusiasm and energy is a key factor.
If you are afraid of success, you will be tempted to sabotage yourself by taking on too much or trying to do too much by yourself. Having more to do than you can possibly accomplish keeps you down, perhaps where you feel safer.

You avoid or procrastinate on big projects, especially projects that could lead to recognition.

You’re afraid that the higher you climb in life, the further you’re going to fall when making a mistake.

You believe that if you do achieve success, you won’t be able to sustain it. So, eventually you’ll fail, and end up back in a worse place than where you started.

You fear the added workload, responsibilities or criticism that you’ll face.

Overcoming the fear …

Often it’s the side effect of success that is holding us back, not the success itself. Understanding and accepting these side effects is the good place to start. Try asking yourself a question “Am I willing to take the pain associated with the gain? Am I willing to sacrifice? If the answer is yes, you are half way there, because the more pains and fears you can bring to the surface, the weaken they become, which will dramatically reduce your reluctance to achieve your goals.

Another great tip (which can be applied to anything in life), and can often eliminate the fears entirely is simply creating a backup plan that address your fears.

With a backup plan and acceptance, what do you have to lose ?