The Fear of Success

 

For some of you, the idea of fearing success sounds absurd. How could anyone fear the very thing we all want to achieve? Yet it’s more common than you think. Often the reason isn’t that you fear succeeding per se, but there’s a fear of what could come with that success, namely overconfidence or arrogance, or feeling like an imposter.

Do you make excuses for not increasing stakes, sizing up, or playing in bigger golf tournaments?Are you more motivated to avoid losing, failure, or making mistakes than to drive yourself towards your bigger goals?Do you find yourself continually retreating to the safety of what you’re already doing well and not pushing yourself to learn more, search for resources, train harder, or practice more efficiently?

Answering yes to any of these questions doesn’t necessarily mean that you fear success. However, if your C-game has gotten stronger, or you’ve achieved some success already, and are still having trouble breaking through to higher levels of performance, it’s possible a fear of success is holding you back.

At the heart of the problem is a slight weakness in confidence. 

Your subconscious is smart. You’re not going to put yourself in a position to really damage confidence. When anticipating success adds pressure, you throttle back your motivation to avoid success and reduce the risk that the weakness in your confidence will get exposed. That’s why the fear of success is closely linked to Impostor Syndrome, which is the worry that you will be “found out” as being incompetent, and have been all along, and thus undeserving of any past success.

The answer to Fear of Success is stable confidence. The first step is recognizing your pattern so when the fear shows up you are ready to disrupt that pattern – which often can be hidden since it emerges less as a feeling of fear, and more in relation to your motivation, focus and drive. Beyond that, let’s look at some of the most common causes of Fear of Success and some corrections to overcome it.

One of the largest causes is your own expectations. For those of you who tend to have high standards, are perfectionistic, and expect a lot of yourselves, once you reach a certain point the thought of going even higher adds too much pressure. Where previously you were constantly driven to level up, now you find yourself too often retreating to comfort. You wonder how you’ll be able to replicate previous success again, let alone achieve even more. The gap between your aspirations and confidence has gotten too wide, as I explain in more detail in this blog.

One tactic to address this is to complete the Perfectionism Worksheet and do the work to truly recognize your past accomplishments. If you feel like success is something that can be taken away from you, failing now would erase previous successes. On the other hand, when you feel like what you’ve accomplished is part of your permanent history, and can’t be taken away, you will have less fear of going after any future success.

There are other versions of the Fear of Success as well. 

You might be worried that success could turn into someone you don’t recognize. You’ve seen other successful people change under the spotlight, becoming arrogant, egotistical, and full of themselves, and you’re concerned that would happen to you. 

That worry could be legitimate when overconfidence has been a problem in the past. But in my experience, the fact that you’re tuned into the potential of this problem means your version of overconfidence is unlikely to become extreme. It doesn’t feel that way, because relative to you it can still be extreme, but not when you compare it to others who have become outwardly arrogant and lose connection to themselves.

If this rings true, start with the last page of the perfectionism worksheet. When you strengthen your own independent confidence and identity by creating clarity on who you are as a person, professional, or performer, you are less likely to become overconfident. This strengthens your base of confidence, and you are therefore less likely to become someone you don’t recognize.

Lastly, depending on what environment you’re in, success might come with more attention from other people, possibly making you a bigger target for the haters. Certainly some of you have the luxury to succeed without many seeing it, although jealousy can come from familial places as well. 

You might fear success because you can’t handle added attention from other people who might try to tear you down. Ideally you’d be viewed as someone who can show others what’s possible, share how you did it, and help others. Unfortunately, there are plenty of people who don’t want any part of that. They instead see you as an outlet for their own issues and you fear not being able to handle the negative attention.

In this case, try playing out the fear. What would you actually do or say if you were to face the kind of negativity you envision from others? What challenges would you anticipate?

Taking the time to game plan and actually come up with ideas of what you would say and do allows you to feel more prepared. Then you get to make a choice: Do you want to limit your success to prevent yourself from having to deal with those potential situations, or do you want to go after what you want and then face the test? You have to pick one. It’s not ok to be in limbo.

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My vote in all of these scenarios is to strengthen your confidence or increase your competence. Being successful in trading, poker and golf is already hard enough and it feels like a travesty to hold yourself back from achieving more. But the choice is yours and there is no shame in choosing the easier route. 

 

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Published on March 10, 2025 15:15
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