Fear of Success?
Posted on February 5, 2012 with 3 commentsI just spent the most amazing weekend with some dedicated people attending my Healing the Hurts That Are Holding You Back Workshop. It was obvious throughout the weekend that God was on the job. One of the awesome attendees asked for this insight that I shared from an article in Psychology Today, so I am posting it here.
Fear of Failure and Fear of Success
Fear of failure will make you try to fit into a standard, but fear of success will make you do anything to avoid reaching that standard. While fear of failure is out there and everybody knows about it, fear of success is hidden so deep in our identity we may not recognize it, but it can be much worse for us.
Fear of failure is associated with making mistakes and not getting approval, while fear of success is the fear of doing things right and therefore not being accepted, not being appreciated and not being able to maintain the level of achievement and success.
While fear of failure results in avoidance, fear of success results in self-sabotage. People with a fear of failure try to avoid the pain of failure. They do not do anything that might lead them to failure. This behavior looks like lack of motivation.
People with fear of success, are also perceived as lacking motivation. If they do achieve success, they quickly mess it up. This way, their unsuccessful identity can be maintained.
They tell stories of "almost success," of self destructive behavior immediately after major success, like "Just when he had enough money, he blew it" or "Just when they bought a new house, he lost his job".
Sigmund Freud wrote an article in 1915 called, "Those Wrecked by Success". He described a tendency to fail "precisely when a deeply rooted and long-cherished wish has come to fulfillment... as though they were not able to tolerate happiness".
Sounds funny?
Well, it is not!
Freud described the fear of success as a perceived need to fail, not an option or a desire but a need. Some people develop the identity of a failure and in order to maintain it, they consciously or subconsciously sabotage everything that could prevent them from fulfilling this self-image.
I believe that because the fear of success exists at the identity level, the source of the problem is not only the parents but all the main identity agents - parents, teachers, other family members and, later on in life, peers.
Another theory related to fear of success is the Imposter Syndrome. This is when people develop a belief that their success is not real, and they live in fear others will discover they are not "really" good at what they do and they are only pretending to be successful.
As Christians we know we aren’t perfect, Jesus knows the real imperfect us and love us anyway! We know can’t get it right without the Holy Spirit’s help. Our righteousness is as filthy rags. Isaiah tells us that the Lord exchanges our filthy rags for His righteous robes. Christ in us our only hope of glory. Now we can be real about who we are because it’s not us, it’s Christ anyway! I think that deserves a hearty amen! Don’t you?