How the Fear of Success Stops You from Achieving Your Dreams

We all know our tolerance for pain.

Touch a hot pan, you immediately flinch back in pain. Running, when out of shape, you quickly feel out of breath, fighting muscle cramps, and beg to stop.

But have you ever questioned if your limited tolerance for positive emotions is sabotaging your success, love, and happiness?

Maybe it's small

You were good all week, following a healthy diet and exercise routine, only to binge all weekend, derailing your efforts.

Or your relationship is going well, and then a small bump, like forgetting to take the trash out, sparks an explosive argument that lingers for weeks.

When things are going well in life, there is a subconscious monster lurking inside you, saying things can't possibly be this good. Reminding you, you are not allowed to be this happy, successful, or accomplished.

The fear inside overcomes your desire to be truly happy, and unconsciously we punish ourselves to bring us back down to our level of comfort and security.

When we find love, financial success, or meet a career goal, something deep down is uncomfortable with this breakthrough. Almost automatically, another area of your life starts to breakdown.

This is because we have an inherent maximum level of positive emotion we can maintain. When we go beyond that, we unknowingly find a way to sabotage it. Bringing ourselves back down to what we think we deserve and prove a self-fulling prophecy that life can't be this good.

My low tolerance made my subconscious drunk with power

Looking back on past relationships, I always found a way to sabotage even the best partners.

In my family arguing was a way of life. Typically, over minor infractions. Everything led to a knock-down-drag-out fight that ended in tears, hurt feelings, and weeks of silence.

I vowed never to repeat this in my own life. For the most part, I avoided committed relationships, keeping them casual and surface level. Still, anytime things were good, and there were signs something more was developing, I always found a way to ruin it.

The fear of being unlovable and exposing my vulnerable self allowed my subconscious to take over. It would preemptively reject someone before I uncovered, I was damaged.

Usually, alcohol-induced, creating imagined drama to protect me from pain. It gave me an excuse to go back to the comfort of isolation and confirmed the belief that no one will accept the real me.

I told myself they were the problem. But the reality was the only one to blame, me.

I believed I was undeserving of unconditional love. And before someone got too close, I cut off the possibility of them finding out. I avoided elusive intimacy, allowing my past to determine the potential of experiencing something real.

Your past doesn't define you

Our childhood roots program who we are. Our brains get shaped by experiences that mold us into who we are as adults and the patterns we follow. It becomes our comfort zone. We feel safe in what we know and what we can expect from the world.

We learn the unknown is to be feared and avoided.

We are protected by our limiting beliefs out of fear of reaching our full potential. We allow uncertainty about what could go wrong to determine how far we can go. Wasting time worrying about the outcome instead of following our intuition and leaning into fear, exploring what could be.

We get comfortable in what we have achieved and accept the status quo. Believing that what we have accomplished was out of sheer luck, and we not dare press it any further. To remain in our comfort zone out of fear of risking it all in something new and uncertain.

Playing it safe gets you nowhere. If you never take the chance to explore your dream, you will never allow yourself the opportunity to shine and grow. When you keep yourself small, it becomes an excuse when you fail. You tell yourself that you didn't try that hard or didn't care anyway.

Attitude over ego

It is the protection of the ego.

Our ego holds us back from being successful on our terms. It creates fear of losing success built around other people's opinions and external factors.

So, we worry. We worry about unimportant things, things we cannot control. Worry takes over our minds. It keeps us from embracing the positive and good things we do have and allowing space for more to come our way.

Our ego wants to keep us stuck. It allows us to avoid the deeper calling we feel inside. Keeping us from becoming the best version of who we are meant to be.

What if the worry was trying to tell you something bigger? Not that you're damaged or stuck, but that greater things are trying to breakthrough. Instead of attaching to the worry, you released them and allowed the positive energy to come through.

You can use your attitude to choose how to embrace worry. Worry and anxiety are a part of life. And curiosity about our fears and flaws turns a worry into a force telling you what direction to follow.

Exploring worries with curiosity, we can realize there is something more than the issue at the surface. It allows us to take a step back and discover what the root cause of our pain is.

Question what the anxiety is about. Is it distracting you from addressing a bigger issue?

Worry is a sign to accept and expand your thoughts instead of avoid and diminish them. To note what you have accomplished and allow the space to evolve into something more.

Connection through authenticity and intention

When we fail to achieve our dreams, we use limiting beliefs as our scapegoat.

"I would but this holds me back"

"I can't because I don't make enough money"

"I don't have the right education for that job"

"That girl is too attractive to like someone like me"

"I'm not good enough"

No matter how successful, most of us suffer from the dreaded imposter syndrome. The feeling of not being good enough or that the achievements we have we haven't truly earned. Ultimately, holding us back from living the life we dream.

No one is immune. There is the little voice in all our heads pulling us back to safety. We blame time, money, resources, and our history to avoid the pain of taking a leap of faith into the unknown. The fear of failing at something we want keeps us sleep-walking in life, feeling numb.

We cannot rewrite history. Our story is the foundation of who we are. But holding on to it holds us back from embracing our gifts and talents of what lights us up in the world.

You have to find your superpower. Call on your talents, skills, and passions to become a useful contributor to the world. Listen to the authentic voice telling you to reach for more, even when the inner-critic says, no you can't.

Taking responsibility for our choices and make intentional decisions on what we give our attention to. We no longer feel the need to escape the world any longer but explore it.

When we ignore it, we procrastinate. Providing short-term relief but eventually consuming our daily habits and routines.

Over-working

Over-worrying

Escaping

People-pleasing

Over-critical

Procrastination is a sign of disconnection. Reconnecting to our values and what matters to us forces us to take back control and filter out the noise.

If you want to get stuff done, find what matters most to you, and do that.

Become a wanderer

Purpose and love do not come from career success, financial wealth, or social status. The purpose of life is to contribute. Find what has meaning to you. To explore the possibilities, not sit idly by waiting for them to come to you.

"The purpose of life is to discover your gift.

The work of life is to develop it.

The meaning of life is to give your gift away."

“Finding Your Strength in Difficult Times: A Book of Meditations” by David Viscott

Life is short. We spend too much time connected while not being very productive. Distracted by social media, constant news updates, and things that have no real value to our lives.

In an age of instant gratification, we obsess over quick fixes. Constantly, in search of how-to answers, that only leads down rabbit-holes of despair and unworthiness.

The answer lies in stillness.

Since childhood, we are taught to believe that being a daydreamer is a bad thing. But in allowing our minds to wander is where great innovation comes.

Have you ever been stumped trying to reminder something in a conversation? Then, when you are doing something completely unrelated, the answer comes to you?

It's because our minds need the freedom to rest and explore. The constant ding of your phone only inhibits our ability to tap into our full potential of achieving our dreams.

Our lives are like an internet browser with 100 tabs open. There is so much information trying to process that eventually, it freezes. You have to close everything down, give it a break from working so hard before it can perform again. Same with our brains.

Embracing stillness lets us discover what it means to be alive. Going past the surface of processing information and dive deeper into our emotions and intuition.

Mindfulness, meditation, exercise, reading books are all ways to allow our minds to turn off for a minute. To wander instead of think and unlock what is begging to rise to the top.

It's never too late

You can still live the life you dream. We all have stories we spend years believing about ourselves.

Accepting, acknowledging, and embracing our story are the first steps. Knowing this helps you breakthrough instead of breakdown.

- You don't have to let your past define you.

- Approach your fear and flaws with a curious attitude.

- Be authentic and intentional to connect to your deeper calling.

- Allow your mind to wander to discover the possibilities.

And remember, you are not alone in your journey.