Thats weird isn't it? There is a particular term for this phobia in psychoanalysis-- Self-sabotage. Have you often heard your parents and your mentors say, "I am happy that you are successful. However, do not let success get into your head." On one hand, they are happy that we are successful but on the other hand, they are scared of the same success. They subconsciously make us fear success. What if success changes our routine? What if we do not spend enough time with those with whom we spent time? What if our routine is disturbed? Well, isn't is obvious part of being successful?
One interesting question is : What will happen if your dreams come true? A five second answer that "I will be happy" will not do. What will you do then? Think about it for 15-20 minutes. How many of you people can tell me what you will do? I am sure most of you will come up with answers like "Let me become successful first"," Lets not count chicken before they hatch". Most of you will just find any excuse to avoid the answer. But why?
The answer lies in our subconscious mind. Our subconscious mind executes our habit. If you have a habit of taking a certain route home, even if you are engaged in some serious thought, you will correctly head home. Sometimes, during these serious thoughtful session, we have often heard our friend holler at us "Hey, are you walking on air? I am calling you for the last 5 minutes. Which world are you living in?" Then our conscious mind processes this distraction and we simply say that we were thinking about something. But even in midst of all this we have correctly headed home. The psychology lies in our behavior. Success brings some change. Changes do have consequences -- some positive and some negative. If we continuously ponder over something most often the thoughts of negative consequences outweigh the positive ones. That is the reason of procrastinating a decision even though we know it can bring us tremendous success.
Let us analyze some consequences when we think of success.
1) People adore me because I am the best. If I change to attain more success, many will become jealous. Friends will turn foe. What if people do not like me anymore?
What if I am left alone? What if people wish bad for me?
2) I am shy and reserved. I love my alone time. I hate crowd. I hate disturbances. If I become successful, I will be herded. I will not be able to get a moment of peace. Even those who liked me will start acting weird( like I am a star)
3) What if I become successful? Where will be the excitement. I want my graph to be on the high side. What if I lose interest?
4) What after success? I have a long life to lead. What after that?
5) What if people think that I am very lucky? What if they spread the rumor that I did not have to struggle to reach that place?
6) I do not deserve so much better. What if there are others better than me? What if they outwit me? What if they displace my record if I eventually do not perform?
Seems familiar. Isn't it? Just that none of us knew that this fear had a name.
This fear originates indirectly from our fear of failure and fear of change. Well, what if someone proposed that you will get a holiday for two if you win a competition which involves the subject that you hate the most? The answer would be "Not possible. I cannot. I am just not good for that." Well forget this analogy. Ok,how many of you tried to run away from the subject that you hated at school? well, I did at a time. It was history(Though some of my friend who know me would say that you said that history was one of your favorite subject). I would procrastinate the task in history till the last moment. The result? Well I was awake the night before the exam and I would cram up and go to the exams. Got a tremendous headache. I put the blame on it. When the marks did not turn up as expected, well, the reason was simple. Put the blame on history. The fact the history was bad and should be removed from the school curriculum altogether. I had the fortune to meet a wonderful history teacher who had a wonderful equation for history
History = His + Story
History is someone's story. When you hear a story, how much information can you recollect? 10%. When you read it for the second time, you would recollect 20% and the total recollection will go on increasing every time you repeat reading. Thats a reason people associate history with cramming. The fact is that you cannot digest all the information in one go. You have to be patient. Once the story becomes part of your conscience, you recollect it even without thinking hard :-). that was the turning point and moving forward I begun to love history because it was his story.What I want to point in terms of my teacher's analogy is
Fear of success is directly proportional to the fear of failure+ fear of change
If
Fear of change=0
Fear of failure=0
Then fear of success will be proportional to 0.
That time our subconscious is ready to accept success in whatever way it comes.
How do we eradicate this fear. The answer is in the equation.
For diminishing the fear of change, we have to keep on looking at the opportunities instead of just security( I mean take calculated risks not ad hoc one).
For reducing fear of failure, we have to first understand our fear. What are we scared of. After that, we have to accept that fear. Unless we accept that we are scared of something, we spend unnecessary time and energy on the avoidance instead of working on it, so our condition is like a trapped wild animal which would struggle hard driven by fear and unnecessarily tighten the noose inflicting more pain on ourselves. If we accept, only then we can work on the particular thing. We will think of ways to eradicate the fear. We would actually take some action.
Once we channelize our subconscious out of the unnecessary fears, we will be able to overcome this.
Caution the process is long and would take a lot of sacrifices. In the process, some other fears will also make way, but again we will eradicate them.
Note for those, who fear success due to boredom or the end, you have a competition for a lifetime. So enjoy the challenge. :-)
I have read up many articles on this particular fear. If you want to know more, you can always search it on the internet. For those seeking all information in one place, you can always refer the below links
* http://www.livestrong.com/article/14659-handling-fear-of-success/
* http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2004/12/fear-of-success-what-will-happen-if-you-succeed/
* http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/200312/the-fear-success
* http://sourcemaking.com/antipatterns/fear-of-success
Please leave comments if you want to share something. Suggestions are always welcome.
Be happy :-)
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