Nearly everyone wants to be successful in his or her life, I say nearly everyone because you can find people who actually have no desires to succeed in anything other than to just make it day to day. Sad really.

So if this is the case, if people truly desire success and everything that comes with it such as: financial freedom, time freedom, house and car of their dreams, exotic vacations around the world, stay at the finest hotels, etc, why do people have a fear of success?

For each person there will be a different reason or reasons, you can not lump everyone into one category and say this is why people fear success, or can you?

I have read many articles on this subject and they are usually dealing with one aspect of why people fear success or many different reasons why people have the fear of success.

However there is one common denominator to each of the reasons given and that it all boils down to one thing: Fear of Change.

It doesn’t matter what reason that is given for having this fear of success cause the things that are necessary for you to be successful are going to be different from what you have been doing in the past.

Let’s look at some of the reasons I have seen or read about for people having the fear of success.

1. Comfort Zone. There is a reason why it’s called the comfort zone. People are comfortable being there. Everything is familiar to them there, there is nothing that is hardly unknown and when there is familiarity there is nothing scary to have to deal with. Nothing to be on edge or excited about.

Well in order to become successful you are going to have to change. You are going to have to leave your comfort zone and do it on a repeated basis. That is the only way you can grow and learn as a person and your business. Having to do this just once for a lot of people is scary enough but the very thought of having to keep on doing it on a regular basis is just too much to handle for many people.
Fear of change - having to leave your comfort zone.

2. Responsibility. You have to be responsible for yourself and the decisions you make along the way in growing your business. You are in charge, in the lead, and it’s up to you. Again there is change here. If you were already a leader by nature chances are you do not have a fear of success other wise you would not be a natural leader. So change must take place. You must do things that do not come naturally to you. You are leaving that comfort zone again. You must become a leader even if it’s just you who you are leading. No one else is going to make decisions for you.

Fear of change, having to take responsibility.

3. Attention factor. Are you a private person? Again change is going to have to take place. Now I am not saying you are going to lose all your rights to privacy just because you wish to have success. What I am saying is that you can no longer just blend into the crowd and not be noticed. If you wish success you are going to have to stand out, get noticed and you will. With success comes attention, no matter what field you are in, more people will know who you are.

Fear of change, having the attention now on you.

4. Higher Standards. When you are a success or climbing that ladder of success more will be demanded of you and you are going to be expected to perform at a higher level. And you should. You are going to have to go that extra mile. Just getting by, doing just enough and not meeting demands will not work. You will be expected to perform well and come through, meeting deadlines and being on time and do this on a regular basis. So again it is change we are talking about. Let’s face it, if you were already doing these things chances are you would already be a success at whatever you wish to do.

Fear of change, having to raise your standards and what is expected of you.

5. Friends / Enemies. This will happen. Get ready. When you become successful people start viewing you differently. They may gain respect or have more respect for you because of what you have accomplished or they will become envious of your newfound success and no longer wish to speak to you or just talk behind your back. People who you thought were your friends or not really true friends and co-workers whom you may not even had any sort of previous contact with just despise you just because of your success.

"Few men have the natural strength to honour a friend's success without envy." Aeschylus

Many people’s fear of success stem from this one reason, they do not wish to take a chance in losing friends or co-workers. These people are in their comfort zone. The thought of making new friends is just too much.

This was one of my past fears. However what I found out once I was able to get through this block was that making new friends with like minded individuals was much more rewarding. I would rather have friends that celebrate me than tolerate me.

Fear of change, may have to make new friends, be talked about by envious co-workers, accepting the idea that people who you thought they were are not who they really are.

6. Self Image. To me this is one of the major setbacks for the fear of success with people. They can not see themselves as being successful. They don’t feel they are worthy of any success that comes their way. Here again people do not wish to leave that comfort zone they have built around themselves. Before any success will come your way the very first thing that must change is you. You must change how you think, see and feel about yourself.

You must think positive and believe you are a winner. You must visualize yourself as successful. You have got to see yourself being a success before you can become a success. Also you must feel it within and know it to be true.

Fear of change, having to accept the idea you are worthy of success.

“Success will not lower its standard to us. We must raise our standard to success.” Rev. Randall R. McBride, Jr.

No matter what category you fall under as your reason or reasons for your fear of success it all comes down to change. You must change in order to see change in your life. Nothing changes until you do.

© Copyright 2007 - All Rights Reserved Delton Doucet