You are listening to the Overthinkers Guide to Joy, episode 21. This week,
I'm going to talk all about your fear of success and your fear of failure. Let's
dive in. Hey there, you are listening to the Overthinkers Guide to Joy.
This is a podcast for overthinkers, overachievers, perfectionists, type A,
stressed out, anxious people who just want to calm down and feel better. I'm your
host, certified life coach, Jackie de Crinis
Hey there, how are you? So this week, I thought I would talk about something that
keeps coming up in my sessions and might be relatable for all of you. And that is
the relationship between failure and success. And I have come to realize that they
are inextricably intertwined. What I believe is the common denominator of both is
actually fear. So as I was doing some research on this, I discovered that fear of
failure actually has a clinical name. It's called a ticaphobia.
And Fear of success has a clinical name too, although less clinical sounding and I'm
probably going to mispronounce. It's a bear with me It's called Achievemphobia Sounds
more made up than a ticaphobia, but nonetheless that is the fear of success
Achievemphobia So I noticed that this pattern this pattern of fear fear of failure
fear of success shows up with a lot of client consultation calls. Perspective clients
would often admit to me that they hesitated to working with a coach for a variety
of reasons. So one client came to me and said, "I'm afraid to hire you because I
think you will tell me to quit my job." And then when I asked, "Why would I do
that?" they said, "Because I hate my job and it's killing And I just responded,
"Oh, okay." I had another client who was afraid that if he got coaching,
his wife would divorce him. And when I asked why, he said, "Because my wife wants
me to go "to a traditional couples counselor, "and I hate our couples counselor.
"She's mean, she picks on me, "and I feel like she's totally on the side of my
wife. "So I'm afraid if I hire you, then she'll leave me, "and I can't be divorced
because it will look bad in my community. I had another client who didn't want to
hire me because they needed to lose weight. And when I asked them, what does that
have to do with hiring me, they said, well, I want to hire you to lose weight,
but I'm afraid you'll tell me to go on a diet and I don't like being on a diet.
So in other words, people don't want to hire a coach for fear that they might
actually get what they want. Isn't it crazy how twisted our thoughts are?
But let me clear up a misconception here, at least about the coaching part. Coaches
don't tell clients what they want or don't want. Clients tell the coach what they
want or don't want. And coaches don't tell the clients what to do or not to do.
Coaches ask the clients what they want and then we help them achieve it by creating
a game plan. So this is not just semantics, it's actually a whole different ball
game. But people are afraid, and they're afraid of two things.
The first thing they're afraid of is failure. They're afraid if they spend money and
invest time, they might not get results. And then They basically are just accepting
being stuck in whatever is bothering them Hating their job their relationship
Chronically feeling anxious depressed being overweight whatever it is and They believe
that being stuck is better than failing Yes,
people would rather sit in their miserable state than risk failing, trying, and being
judged by themselves or others. And the second big reason people don't want to hire
a coach is fear of success. Now, I know you're thinking, wait, what?
How can you be both afraid of failure and success? Well, that's because the fears
carry a lot of the same traits. People who fear failure are afraid of being judged.
People who fear success are afraid of being judged too. Or they're afraid people
might be jealous of them and that they might lose friends. Or they're afraid that
if they're successful, there will be too much pressure to keep it up, which is
secretly just a fear of failure. And the last thing is people are afraid,
if they succeed and they're still not happy, there's nowhere else to turn.
So by not trying to succeed, they ensure staying miserable and once again,
there's comfort in being miserable because at least it's familiar. So many years ago,
long before I was a coach, I had a dear friend who was very overweight, not kind
of overweight or subjectively overweight, but clinically overweight. And she needed to
lose somewhere between 125 and 150 pounds. The interesting thing was that she was
really beautiful, kind, smart, and successful. She was married with kids, had a
beautiful home, a great career, money in the bank, all the things. And she had a
million friends. She liked to travel and attend parties. She was one of my favorite
people in the whole world. And She never complained about her weight or being
uncomfortable. If she suffered, she suffered in silence. But it was actually her
doctors who were very concerned about her health and her weight was a big issue in
her marriage too. So she finally joined a weight loss program and in less than a
year she lost 110 pounds. She was so close to her goal weight and she looked and
felt amazing. Her husband, friends, family, co -workers all supported her and
celebrated her commitment to her transformation. But as she got closer and closer to
her goal weight, she slowly started falling off the wagon. She stopped being careful
with her diet and the weight slowly but surely all came back. And months went by
and I asked her in a private moment why she gave up on her goal and she told me
that all the attention and the compliments about her new body and her new appearance
made her very uncomfortable. So she just basically went back to what she knew,
eating for comfort and hiding in her bigger body. She was more comfortable being
comfortable in her discomfort. I know that's kind of a tongue twister, but it was
the devil she knew. And that's where she stayed. And I only tell you that anecdote,
because it stayed with me about why people self -sabotage,
why people who kind of have everything, and then there's this one thing they want,
don't want that. It's almost like this fail -safe of failure, that it feels good to
have a flaw or it feels good to struggle or it feels good to just be uncomfortable
about something. And that usually stems from feeling not deserving of success,
even though this woman had success in all other facets of her life, but not with
her body and not ultimately with her health. So, success and failure are the same
side of the coin. People fear both and they are often confused. And some people
don't bother trying for fear of failing, like I said, and being judged. And other
people get close to success and then self -sabotage because, like I just told you,
it's too uncomfortable feeling different or getting attention they don't think they
deserve. Both of these conditions, failure and success are just thoughts.
But how do we control or corral our thoughts? Well, the first step is to bring
them into the light. Whether you hire a therapist or a hypnotherapist or a coach or
do it on your own, it's important to get these thoughts out. It's important to
examine Where did they come from? Where did the fear of failure or success come
from? What stories were you told as a child? Did someone tell you that you would
never amount to anything or were you led to believe that you were destined to fail?
Or did someone tell you that if you were successful that other people would be
jealous of you resent you or try to harm you? These stories,
voices, tapes in your head, whatever you want to call them, they came from a moment
in time when you were probably at an impressionable age, or it might have been
something that you just heard over and over again. If you listen to my podcast on
money a few weeks ago, you know that these old beliefs can often be inherited or
drilled into us by a family member or a mentor, maybe not a good one,
but some kind of leader in your community where you were told information and then
you believed it to be gospel. It's our job to challenge those limiting beliefs and
write a new chapter of our story. Just because someone told you something or some
kind of family belief was cemented into your upbringing, That does not seal your
fate You're in charge of your own narrative. You're in charge of your success,
and it's your job to accept failure as part of the journey Embracing failure as
part of the journey rather than fearing it will keep you from quitting on yourself
Keep telling yourself there is no success without failure. It's like the same goes.
The first pancake is always burnt. It requires trial and error to get the
temperature just right. And the same goes for your business. The same goes for love.
The same goes for everything. Experience is our teacher. Failure is our teacher.
And the most successful people in the world have had epic failures before coming
wildly successful. As Ariana Huffington said, failure is not the opposite of success,
it's part of success. And as Woody Allen was once quoted saying, success is 80 %
showing up. So I'm gonna leave you with a series of questions. Where is fear
holding you back? If you knew you could not fail, What would you do?
Where in your life would you make a change? And just remember this,
it is never too late to make a change and it is never too late to be successful.
Once again, I want to thank you for listening. I look forward to talking to you
next week. Have a great week and buy for now. If you want to learn more tips
about managing your stress and how to manage your overthinking brain, just go to my
website and sign up for my weekly newsletter at jackiedecrinis.com. That's J -A -C -K
-I -E -D -E -C -R -I -N -I -S .com.
You can also follow me on Instagram at jackiedecrinis. Thank you for listening to
this episode of Overthinker's Guide to Joy. If you like what was offered in today's
episode, I would love you to leave a review and subscribe or follow wherever you
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