Fear of success

Fear of success symptoms

This fear of change, which is brought about by success, can trigger unconscious mechanisms of self-sabotage. There are many strategies for sabotaging oneself in order to prevent oneself from taking the decisive steps towards success and thus maintain the status quo. In this way, we protect ourselves from switching to an unknown state that does not yet fit in with our current self-image. So to speak: if you stay where you are, you are on the safe side.

It is typical of the fear of success that there are known concrete steps to bring about success, but the fear prevents the person concerned from implementing these steps. Many different fears play a role here. For example, worrying about how those around them will react or even losing their support. This can be the case with a career advancement where colleagues are no longer my equals.

The diffuse fear in the face of impending success and the associated change is accompanied by a subliminal unease or inner restlessness. It is triggered by thoughts about the future that are characterized by negative assumptions and self-doubt. Fear of success is always associated with self-doubt. If you are familiar with associating a future success, i.e. a positive event, with unspecific thoughts of disaster rather than the actual satisfaction of achieving a goal, then you may be suffering from fear of success. It triggers brooding and leads to avoidance behavior or self-sabotage, which means that you prevent yourself from successfully achieving the goal.

Thoughts turn to what comes after success. Will it be difficult to withstand the pressure created by external expectations, your own demands, new tasks, unfamiliar territory, increasing responsibility and the eyes that are now on you? Success is also preceded by a decision. And this goes hand in hand with the obligation to invest time and leisure in the new path.

Moreover, the higher you go, the lower you can fall. So with every success comes the threat of failure. In their fearful reaction, those who are afraid of success are quick to see mistakes as failures rather than as challenges and opportunities. But nothing ventured, nothing gained. So it’s worth it – if only to get to know yourself better. This also includes having the courage to show yourself to others and not always being able to hide your own shortcomings.

There is also a basic human need behind the fear of success, namely social connection. Being successful can actually jeopardize relationships, e.g. if friends are unable to help you succeed. However, the negative consequences of this fear are generally overestimated.

And it’s not just the fear that people might turn away from you or that you might face a headwind from your social environment that plays a role, but a whole range of fears that can jeopardize your success. In addition to the fear of being judged by others (“he/she thinks he/she is better”), there is the fear of conflict and obstacles of all kinds, the fear of making mistakes and having to ask others for advice, the fear of revealing one’s own weaknesses, the fear of the future and the unknown.

The doubt as to whether you really deserve success or whether someone else might not do it better leads to all kinds of unconscious strategies to delay success. Perhaps you are familiar with the situation where you have to finish something but keep getting bogged down, are too perfectionist to achieve a final result, are dissatisfied as a result and believe you will never be able to complete the work successfully. Perhaps you don’t even start and keep yourself from doing other, objectively even sensible and important things such as cleaning or tidying up. Escaping into other tasks doesn’t even create a guilty conscience in contrast to wasting time watching series. Behind all these behaviors is the assumption that success is very difficult to achieve, if at all. Sometimes it only takes one simple step to achieve success. But we can’t really imagine achieving our goal so easily. So we squirm around the task out of fear of success. The self-fulfilling prophecy is perfect, because success actually appears to be an ever greater challenge.

The fear of success often arises when we are about to take a step that we have never taken before. For example, when we ask for a pay rise for the first time or have never told our best friend our opinion on topic X before. We then overestimate hurdles and see negative side effects as much bigger than they actually are, accompanied by the feeling that we are not yet ready.

In addition to the symptoms of procrastination, i.e. getting distracted or putting other things off, it can also happen that you prevent yourself from successfully achieving your goal because you tend to be overly reactionary, perfectionist, dogged or pushy. The other extreme is lethargy, which can lead to depression. It becomes almost impossible to work constructively towards success if the inner anxiety conflict leads to symptoms that only allow passive activities such as watching television. Because if the fear of success becomes stronger and stronger and is nevertheless ignored, the conflict is resolved on a physical level. In order to escape the unpleasant situation, restlessness, tiredness, hunger or lack of concentration arise when tackling the task.

It is therefore important to be able to deal with change and to strengthen not only your flexibility, but above all your self-confidence. This also increases confidence in the future self to be able to deal with the unknown.