What Do You Fear Most, Success or Failure? (The Answer Might Surprise You)

It is well known in our industry that many people fail to reach their goals in life due to the mindset known as “fear of failure.” But did you know the other major factor that is often overlooked is known as “fear of success”?

Fear of failure will give you the inability to make decisions or take action based on not wanting to get rejected or experience negative outcomes. This negative mindset is easy to identify and there are many ways, through the personal development industry, to help reprogram the mind for success. However, the fear of success is much more subtle and harder to spot and also harder to reprogram.

Here are some indications of a “fear of success” mindset:

1. You study relentlessly to implement self-improvement techniques or personal development skills, but your life does not improve or may even get worse.
2. You settle for less than you feel you deserve or are capable of achieving.
3. You start new projects full of enthusiasm and optimism but stop trying and fall short before you have completed them.
4. You expect things to go wrong no matter how well the situation appears to be at the moment.

Can you identify your own patterns in the any of the above statements? The fear of success can also make you act in ways that hold you back. Look at the list below. These are the symptoms of “the fear of success”:

• Procrastination – putting off what needs to be done now even though you know it will bring you closer to your desired result. Everyone suffers from this inner ‘voice’ at some point in their lives (although some of us suffer from it more than others!). Procrastination is a ‘Dream killer’! How can you expect to reach your dreams if you do not take action steps? Always doing little things each day that will bring you one small step closer to your goal. This is why having a personal accountability partner is an essential in the fight against procrastination. Just Do It! Any action! Adjust your steps as you go but don’t sit and do nothing. Taking action is one of  the key ingredients  in personal development.
• Can’t see the forest for the trees! – This is the opposite of procrastination but has the same effect on your personal development. This saying is well known but have you ever given it any real thought? Don’t get caught up in your plan believing that it is more important than the actual goal! A lot of people get caught up in this. They start to think and act as if the plan is more important than my end result.
• Thinking that the time is not right – have you ever had to wait until the timing was perfect before starting a venture? I’m sure you know someone who has to have more information or a better plan before they can make their decision?
• Action is the key to success. Even taking small baby steps are better than taking none or waiting to see if your headed in the right direction! Even if your actions take you further away from your goal, at least gained insight and knowledge about what doesn’t work!
• Being a perfectionist – This a lot like any other and has the same effect, that you seem to be spinning your wheels. No matter how good a job is when its finished it can always be better! Musicians tell us how they hate listening to their own music because they can find a million things that need to be improved. Yet, we still enjoy them.
• Seeing only the problems – how do you use your focus? Do you constantly see only and all the problems involved? If you are this way, it is pointless trying to change overnight! However, you can use this mindset to your advantage while you push forward in your personal development to acquire an opportunistic mindset.

Here is a great example of a way to turn a negative into a positive. I used to do door to door sales for Dish-network. For 3 straight years our company led the Northwest in sales. Now, little did anyone know that there were only  2 sales people on our sales force. But we were young and hungry and the market was wide open. Not one day, for 3 years, did my sales partner and I ever say, “How many sales are you going get today?”…. We never focused on sales, but instead, we focused on getting No’s. It sounds weird, but it worked!

See, we knew that we could not work a 4 hour day and get 100 people to say no to us without selling at least 10 Systems. Then we would count the No’s we received throughout that day, divide that number by the amount of money we made and made a game to see how much money each person that told us no, paid us. We had a blast and made a game out of the rejection we would get, because we knew More NO’S Meant More Dough!

Most Entrepreneurs go through this, follow these guidelines and you will achieve success. Your fear of success will be whittled away and you will  move forward in your mindset and your growth through personal development.

Tagged as: goals, personal development, self improvement, success