The Fear of Success

“It is a joy to be hidden and a disaster not to be found.” - Donald W. Winnicott

“Ah, you loved me as a loser, but now you're worried that I just might win.” - Leonard Cohen

Success has consequences. It could lead to important changes in one’s life, sometimes even a change in professional or social status and identity, involving new and additional responsibilities, as well as heightened expectations on the part of "others"…

Psychological conflicts that interfere with confidence and motivation to pursue goals or enjoy success are common emotional difficulties (Klafter, 2015 ). Unfortunately, when an unrecognized fear of success becomes reinforced by irrational and inflated thoughts or beliefs linked to negative emotional states, such as anxiety or envy (and which may be hard to recognize, especially if one has been thinking in such ways for years), it is at risk to become a cause of severe passive procrastination (avoidance of necessary tasks) and active procrastination (focus on secondary tasks).

Fear may potentially lead to feelings of helplessness and dependency, inhibiting your efforts to achieve your goals (success-avoidance), or if you succeed, your success may be accompanied by guilt and self-condemnation. Feeling unworthy of your success, you may tend to destroy it rather than appreciate it, sometimes even punishing yourself for having achieved your goals (success-wrecking), which could lead you into a vicious circle, making it increasingly difficult to pursue new goals.

The prospect of success may indeed awaken various fears:

• Fear of failure, of eventually “falling off the wagon” and losing everything,
• Fear of not being able to assume the responsibilities associated with success (imposter syndrome),
• Fear of being rejected, of having to face the envy and the hatred that success might arouse,
• Fear of becoming a different person, of having one’s rhythm of life disrupted and losing all points of reference, and even losing one’s identity,
• Fear of change, dreading the unknown, no more well-trodden path.

What Is Success?

The Merriam-Webster and Oxford English dictionaries offer two definitions of success: (1) A desired or favorable outcome, and (2) the attainment of wealth, status, fame, and honor.

This reflects both the personal and subjective dimensions of success, as well as the common external signifiers of success in Western culture.

Nevertheless, everyone understand success in their own subjective ways...

Kohut’s self-psychology (1968) offers valuable insights into ambition and success. According to him, healthy self-esteem development begins with a child’s grandiose needs for love and praise, met adequately by caregivers. This grandiosity is normal in childhood, and role models are needed later to inspire goals and ambitions. However, severe neglect of these needs can result in narcissistic disorders, either inhibiting individuals from pursuing ambitions or driving them to exaggerated grandiosity.

Realistic Success?

Is the success to which you aspire attainable? There is a difference between low probabilities and unrealistic aspirations and fantasies. When unrealistic and unattainable goals prevail, they will prevent people from enjoying any positive accomplishments. The gap between their self-representations and their ideals creates a sense of failure and inadequacy, and eventually contributes to a low self-esteem.

What To Do?

The first step to overcome fear of success is to recognize it and become aware of the associations you may hold around success.

What is success for you? What does it mean to you?

What emotions and beliefs come spontaneously to mind when you let yourself daydream about success?

By exploring new vantage points on success, and considering healthier narratives of success, you will gradually distance yourself from a self-image that doesn't deserve to succeed.

Sometimes, what you had initially considered a fear of success may simply turn out to be a lack of desire to achieve goals that don't match your true aspirations.

Identify the recurring beliefs that enable procrastination. Have compassion for it, dialogue with it, and confront it. If your procrastination could talk, what would it tell you? Imagine you didn't have these beliefs - just for a moment - and listen to the inner voice advising you on what to do.

Identify how self-sabotaging activities are preventing you from achieving your goals. Explore with curiosity the sources of the fear that animate and guide you without your being aware of it. Ask yourself what would be the worst thing that could happen if you eventually succeed? In this way, you'll bring your hard-to-confess limiting beliefs to the surface of your consciousness. If these situations arose, what would you do then? You'll realize that some (if not all) of your fears, when considered carefully, turn out to be less frightening than you might have expected. You'll see for yourself, as your viewpoint changes, that your feelings become less dramatic.

How Coaching Can Help?

Recognizing and confronting negative associations with success will help you overcome self-sabotage, and this is easier done through conversations with a caring and challenging professional than alone.

Coaching informed by psychological dynamics offers a safe place where you can face and explore the tensions between the desire to have your own experiences and feel your uniqueness, and at the same time, the desire to be seen, accepted and understood by those around you. This process can be quite liberating. It helps you reconnect to your potential, by bringing you closer to who you know you are somewhere deep inside, while allowing someone else to see it for a moment, allowing yourself to be “found”.

Psychodynamic coaching helps you address performance tasks, challenging encounters, emotional challenges and avoid withdrawal from healthy competition - a strategy that could arise to fulfill the desire to be inconspicuous when faced to new and unknown situations.

For rising executives, coaching during the transition phase to new positions has proven beneficial to prevent hidden and unjustified feelings of unworthiness from causing failure. Individual coaching is particularly helpful in the preparatory phase, as well as at the start of the new position, to ensure a successful transition (Kets de Vries & Cheak, 2014).

Understanding that diverse individuals experience "fear of success" differently is crucial. There is no single psychological profile for this fear; it affects people with various backgrounds and personality styles. Coaching must therefore be highly individualized, focusing on the individual's specific beliefs, fantasies and fears about success.

Awareness of how gender, ethnicity, and socioeconomic class impact self-esteem, confidence, and ambition need also be taken into account. Ethnic minorities and the economically disadvantaged tend to face additional "success neurosis" due to messages of being undeserving or incapable of professional success (Klafter, 2015 ).

Conclusion

Fear of success can lead to significant life-long problems, including lost jobs, missed opportunities, and failed relationships. Addressing it with a professional can help you overcome self-sabotaging behaviors and unlock your potential for satisfaction and success across multiple domains of life.

I am an organizational behavior consultant and executive coach. Licensed psychologist FSP and a graduate of INSEAD’s Executive Master in Consulting and Coaching for Change, I trained in executive coaching at Hult Ashridge International Business School and in supervision for coaching and consultancy at The Tavistock Institute of Human Relations.

For more than twenty years I have worked with executives in transition and leveraged psychological dynamics to foster insight, change and impact at individual and organizational levels.

I work both in-person and remotely.

You can reach me at www.bagutticonsulting.com

References

Kets de Vries, M. F. R., Cheak, A. (2014). Psychodynamic Approach, INSEAD Working Paper No. 2014/45/EFE.

Klafter, A. (2015). Review of the psychoanalytic literature on "Fear of Success" or "Success Neurosis". In Akhtar Salman (ed.), Greed: Developmental, Cultural, and Clinical Aspects. London: Karnac.

Kohut H (1968). The Psychoanalytic Treatment of Narcissistic Personality Disorders—Outline of a Systematic Approach. Psychoanalytic Study of the Child, 23:86-113.