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Does the Fear of Success Have You Paralyzed?
How we stand in our own way and how to move through.
I haven’t written in a long time, and I’m mad about that. But I’ve been busy, I tell myself. And really, I have been. I’ve been busy wasting my own time.
You see, I’m one of those people. I have all the tools in the shed, sharpened and ready to go, and yet I just stand there staring at them. It’s not that I think they’re going to Fantasia their way into doing the job on their own; it’s that I’m too scared to use them because — and here’s the messed up part — what if I get it right?
I’m a certified life coach, and I’m trying to start my own coaching practice, doing something I love and do well. I know these are strengths of mine, and I’ve got people offering to pay me to work together, yet I sit around playing Candy Crush instead of working up the nerve to reach out to those people because I’m scared.
The funny thing is that I’m not scared to fail. I’m scared to succeed, and that might be more paralyzing than failure. If I fail, I’m right back where I am now, which is a place I know well and am comfortable being. But if I succeed? My whole life could change. And even though I tell myself I want that change, my brain’s got me in panic mode.