Fear of success is as prevalent as fear of failure and is one of the main reasons why a lot of people are not fulfilling and maximizing their potential.
Most of the time, the fear of success is subconscious. As such it has much power. When the enemy is unknown it can stab you in the back. When you shed the light of awareness over it you can rationally examine it, face it, debate it and dismiss it or use my SCT (Sabotage Correction Technique) to remove it.
In my years of practice I found quite a few flavors and sub-flavors of the fear of success.
A lot of people are subconsciously and even consciously afraid of the responsibilities that come with success. They are afraid success would take away too much time from fun, recreation and social activities. They fear that the time required achieving (and maintaining) success would interfere with their quality of life. They’ll have less time to sleep, exercise, and eat right or play. They may lose sleep worrying about losing it all.
And it is much more painful crashing down from a high place.
Another common fear is that once successful they’ll get a lot of unwanted attention. They’ll feel pressure to fulfill too high of expectations either from themselves or from others to always exceed their current success. People would expect from their successful friends or relatives to help them out financially or otherwise.
I find that people are subconsciously blocking their success as they fear it is lonely up there. They are afraid to lose their friends. The friends may be resentful, or jealous, or feel intimidated. I had a patient who was afraid that her wealth would intimidate potential suitors. She was also afraid that people would marry her for her money and not for who she is.
I had a patient who subconsciously did not exceed the amount of money his father made. He was subconsciously afraid of the father’s retaliation. Another person felt her father’s love comes to her in the form of financial support and subconsciously was afraid to lose his love should she be financially independent.
A lot of artistic people live with the Archetype of the Starving Artist. They are subconsciously convinced that commercial success will compromise their art and authenticity.
And then there is the spiritual angle: People are afraid that financial success would corrupt them, make them greedy and attached to material things. Some have the concept that their wealth is at the expense of all the millions who are starving. A patient of mine had the subconscious belief that once wealthy he’ll stop being humble and modest and will be more egotistic, selfish and full of himself.
Another common fear is the fear of the unknown. Being successful is unfamiliar and therefore frightening. Along the same line, in order to be successful they’ll have to step out of their comfort zone.
In my practice, after removing self sabotage to being happy in general, I use Energy Muscle Testing (EMT) to check sabotage to success. I keep being surprised by more and more types and varieties of the fear of success. As we are able to detect and then remove the sabotage using my SCT, people are gradually able to stop standing in their own way and start achieving more and more financial and career success.
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