Signs of self-sabotaging your relationships and your business and personal goals are demonstrating your fears of success. Why do we have fear? We feel vulnerable to new environments, situations, and people. Getting to the point of success can expose our weaknesses and make us come face to face with our flaws; therefore, we maneuver around what could be successful opportunities.
The fear of success is very real and often happens when you are moving forward in your life. The future is what we are talking about and we are all heading in that direction. We just don’t know how to work on the future.
Sometimes we fear success as much as we fear failure. We may openly express our fear of failure but keep our fear of success to ourselves. Success can be intimidating and then what if we don’t live up to our achievements? What if we become a bag lady?
People may not believe in their personal opportunity for success because they feel they may not be good enough, smart enough, and handsome enough.
Here are some signs of sabotaging your road to success:
- Negative, pessimistic thoughts: “what’s the point of preparing for this showing, they probably won’t buy anyway and I will have wasted my time”. “I’m not worth it. I don’t deserve to be successful”.
- Focusing on all things that could go wrong: “what if I get to that area of town and I don’t know my way around. I am going to look really unprepared or stupid or if I achieve that goal I may lose my identity.”
- Procrastination: instead of doing your tasks at hand, you putter around and do in sequential tasks or fluff work. You don’t take the practical steps to get the work done.
- All talk and no action: you talk about what you want to accomplish, a lot…but you don’t start by taking the steps to get it started.
- A crummy self image. “I am not worthy” or “wow, did I just get lucky, they bought from me”.
Why self sabotage? It helps you avoid change and allows you to just stay in your comfort zone. People with a fixed view of their abilities get unsettled when they succeed and then their performance begins to decline.
Here are some suggestions for helping you get moving into the successful direction you desire:
- Do not see your abilities or role as set in stone. You are a piece of clay always ready to be flexible and changeable.
- Create a detailed picture of the future you want to create and achieve.
- Write down your fears and then destroy the paper
- Imagine the worst case scenario if you don’t achieve, then go step by step tearing it away and destroying it in your mind.
Women often fear success because it may lead to loneliness. They fear being too powerful and therefore rendered themselves unlovable. Even the fear of losing weight we are told is the fear of becoming more attractive and not knowing how to handle this new situation.
Take your power back! Once you conquer your fear and move forward you realize you could have been there all along. What is there to gain from being powerless?
Success is tied to achievement. Achievement is a good thing and the fact is we never expected, intended or wanted to be a failure. Change your behavior, your mindset and believe in yourself. There are people out there who are smarter, faster, and more handsome than you but there are millions of people out there who do not hold a candle to you!
