Afraid of success?

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I'm starting to think I'm more afraid of success than failure. Every time something good seems to happen - perhaps after a lot of failure - I just feel anxious. I do consciously hate failing, but it might be realistic that I'm too apathetic towards anything other than failing.

So e.g. every time someone praises me, or at the very least presents positive feedback I just feel anxious, and as such I'd rather that they did - perhaps I'd rather I didn't fail either... just floating around in the limbo of eternity.

What do you hope to be successful in accomplishing?

people often tell me i'm afraid of success. i never know how to tell them it's not success i'm afraid of: i'm terrified of the large-scale failures and large-scale uncertainties that accompany success. success is generally impossible without gamble. but every gamble contains an unbiased and inherent potential for loss as well as gain. therefore, if i'm gambling more in pursuit of success, i'm simultaneously increasing my chances of failing. in other words, the more successful i become, the more likely failure becomes due to the increased risks success requires - which all have indeterminable outcomes... success and potential failure seem to enjoy this bizarre dynamic of increasing in tandem...

 in some ways, it seems easier to be an underachiever because small-scale failures appear to be less damaging. but then, one could easily argue that running around with pathological degrees of risk-aversion becomes a failure in itself, if you're too terrified to go after what matters most in life. that's no way to live.

i know for myself, fear of success can also sometimes be more about anxiety. anxiety regarding the expectations people may place on me (and the expectations i will inevitably place on myself).

I totally understand your post, I'm afraid of success, or of succeeding in getting a job, making a friend etc, and then not being able to sustain it. My life is peppered with a train of failed friendships and jobs, and now I'm paralysed and afraid of moving forward in any way. I am good at learning but hopeless at applying my knowledge to any situation.

I am not afraid of success, but I do not like to be praised or given positive feedback. At least not specific forms of positive feedback. For example, I would feel very uncomfortable if someone said, at work for example, "I love it! You are so smart!" I would rather hear "That was a very clever solution to that problem."

I also hate public praise. In fact, if my boss wants to be sure that I never do something again, all she has to do is praise me in public for it.

I think the more "global" kind of feedback (you are so smart) as opposed to specific (that solution was smart), puts a lot of pressure on a person.

I used to be, until I started being more afraid of squandering my gifts.

The clock is ticking. One day you'll fall down dead. What's your legacy? What will your succeeding generations proudly proclaim about you? You had the largest guild in Warcraft? You had a facebook page full of debates?

I decided to be afraid of not using this big brain to its maximum. It's shaky and sometimes I fail or fall down. But, now I get up and try again and again.

Thats not fear of success, thats fear of change. I am the same way.

This is something I relate to well.

If you have ahd a lot of recent failure in your life, it's quite understandable that you might feel anxious when things start to work out.

I get this a lot, in my case I think my brain is more geared up for things going wrong rather than going right, so when I start to succeed I atuomatically wonder when it will next go wrong.

In my case this is for lots of reasons, but I have also read that evolutionary development has in part led us to expect things to go wrong. This is because we are descended from the people who were always on the look out for next bear or lion (or dangerous human) round the corner and so were the ones who survived to have children (the ones who were not eaten!). That means we are all decended from the cautious and the pessimistic and so have a natural tendency to be that way.

For me it helps to realise this, that my evolved brain is just helpfully warning me that things might go horribly terribly wrong, but that does not mean they actually WILL so it is ok to enjoy and expect success too.

So I'm getting better at accepting success now, but I still have to work at it, whereas expectation of failure comes much more naturally!

I too, am afraid of any of the things that could come along after any possible success has been achieved.

If I were to achieve success, in any particular field, I feel like it would surely be followed by a big fall.

People are usually afraid of both success (and failing later) or failure.

But, it's better to try for what you want and fail than do nothing at all.

You can fail a million times or succeed a million times. Failure isn't permanent unless you let it be... seriously.

That's not accurate. Not all success requires increasing risks, and success isn't perfection-- it's accomplishing things good at times (with the routine failures less noticeable). What makes failure more likely is doing nothing at all.

If you do nothing at all, you will fail. Period. Doing nothing is permanent failure.

If you continuously try, fail, then wisely change your actions so you can succeed again, you'll succeed again after learning from your momentary failures. If you succeed once, then fail once, that's more of a fluke than lifelong success.

Look at Steve Jobs. Do you consider him a failure? Of course not. But, he was fired by the company he co-founded at first.
During this time of "failure" for him, he acquired Pixar Animation Studios. He later sold Pixar, making him a billionaire.
Listen to his 2005 Stanford commencement speech about all his failures. He didn't let one (or 100) failure hinder his overall success.

Who else?

Henry Ford.
His businesses failed and left him penniless 5 times bore he founded Ford Motor Company.

R. H. Macy
He started 7 failed businesses before starting Macy's department store.

Soichiro Honda
Honda was turned down for a job by Toyota. He was jobless for a while and made scooters at home. His neighbors encouraged him to start his own company. He did... now we have Honda motors.

Walt Disney
Disney was fired from a newspaper job for being "unimaginative." He started (and failed at) a few businesses before starting Disney. He finally found a recipe for business success. Obviously, it works. Disney rakes in billions.

Albert Einstein
Einstein was though to be mentally ret*d as a child. He was expelled from school. Ultimately, he found a way to succeed and won the Nobel Prize.

Thomas Edison
Edison did poor in school, then was fired from 2 jobs. He made 1,000 failed attempts before inventing the light bulb.

Jerry Seinfeld
Starting out, he froze on stage at a comedy club and was booed off stage. He knew he could do it, so he went back the next night. He succeeded.

Vincent Van Gogh:
During his life, Van Gogh only sold ONE painting... to a friend, for penny change. He kept painting, despite no success at the time. Now his paintings are worth many hundreds of millions.

Michael Jordan
He was cut from his HIGH SCHOOL basketball team. He has lost 300 games. He has missed over 9000 shoots. He has failed over and over again, but keeps trying and learning. Is he a failure? Of course not.


If you can be wise and learn from your mistakes, you don't have to repeat them over and over again.

http://www.quotegarden.com/success.html

I know what you mean. It's what I long ago termed "Eeyore Syndrome". You see, Eeyore was always pessimistic for a certain reason: He was afraid of being happy or succeeding. Happiness brings with it a lot of unknowns while sadness and failure is an end unto itself. Thus, he chose to go for the predictable outcome rather than the one that could bring him both more happiness and a greater degree of sadness than failing from the outset.

I do this to myself a lot. This is especially true if I am romantically interested in someone. I run all the scenarios through my head and find that the only one I can control is failure, so that is what I choose. I am actually doing a slow death roll into this once again with someone at work. As I see the negatives outweighing the positives, I am letting any chance I would have had die on the vine. Plus, she doesn't check the right boxes on my minimal list of dating criteria, so I see it as something that would not work long term anyhow.