Self-sabotage, fear of success
http://guesswhatnormalis.com/2007/11/self-sabotage-a/
Fear of success is actually fear of change.
Everybodyâs heard the term âfear of failure.â Itâs very easy to hear that expression and think, âYeah. I get it. Who wouldnât be scared to fail? Failure sucks.â But when I hear the expression âfear of success,â I scratch my head (figuratively) and think, âWell, why? Why would someone be scared to succeed? I mean success is a good thing.â Why would anyone want to not succeed?
Thereâs a relationship between self-sabotage and fear of success. Self-sabotage is our way of avoiding success. Whatâs scarier? Not succeeding or succeeding? Be honest. Does the thought of success scare you more than the thought of not succeeding?
Isnât failure moreâ¦comfortable? Self-sabotage keeps you right where you are â frustrated, but comfortable.
Your fear of success is in love with self-sabotage.
Success, to the soul, means leaving home. It means departing from whatâs currently familiar. Abandoning the present, and embracing the unknown. Success requires risk-taking, large and small risks. Being open to success means becoming open to the possibility of leaving all that is familiar, and comfortable. It means leaving yourself as you know yourself. It could mean leaving a familiar neighborhood, town, and being farther away from family. Success entails change. Change of job, change of location, and a change of you.
No wonder so many people take the path of least resistance. No wonder so many people avoid success and, instead, veer toward self-sabotageâ¦toward the comfortable familiarity of the old.
THE HEROâS JOURNEY
If you want to discard your fear of success and self-sabotage, then you must embrace your lifeâs journey. The heroâs journey is an old, archetypal description of lifeâs path. (Itâs also a developmental dramatic arc often used for movies and novels â Star Wars and Lord of the Rings.)
The stages of the heroâs journey are:
The Ordinary World
The Call to Adventure
The Refusal of the Call
Meeting with the Mentor
Crossing the First Threshold
Tests, Allies, Enemies
Approach to the Inmost Cave
Ordeal
Reward (seizing the sword)
The Road Back
Resurrection
Return with the Elixir
Your present life is the Ordinary World.
If you commit to starting and finishing a project, that is your Call to Adventure.
Your Refusal of the Call will be self-sabotage, the part of you that wants to talk you out of the idea. Addiction is one form of self-sabotage. Addiction prevents growth â that is textbook self-sabotage. Itâs scary to change because it can feel like abandonment, so addicts choose to keep using instead.
Once you meet someone (or read something) that causes you to reconsider your journey (or project), you will have had your Meeting with the Mentor.
Once you successfully get past a tremendously difficult aspect of the project, you will have met and Crossed the First Threshold.
Along the way there will be Tests (events or people (including yourself) that test your steadfastness), Allies (folks who help you toward your goal), and Enemies (folks who try to distract you from your goal). One âtestâ could be your old self testing your new self, in the form of perfectionism (a precursor to self-sabotage). Many ACoAs are perfectionists. The need for something to be just right, perfect, paralyzes us. The need for something to be âperfectâ before itâs finally done derails us. It is a distraction. It prevents us from starting projects (because they wonât turn out perfectly) and it prevents us from finishing projects (because they donât match up with our perfect vision).
Your Approach to the Inmost Cave is both a personal insight, potentially life-changing, as well as a reaching of a certain point of no return.
At this point an Ordeal may come, in which your project or goal will be in some sort of jeopardy. But because you are steadfast and because you have made a personal discovery, you are not going to be prevented from your path at this point.
Your Reward is either the reaching of your goal or completion of your project, or an unexpected but incredibly fortunate surprise.
The Road Back is your journey back towards the âhomeâ from which you began the adventure.
Your Resurrection is the creation of a brand new self â you have been deeply affected by your journey and goal-reaching. This is your new identity revealing itself to you, and the world.
The Return with the Elixir is your reaching âhomeâ and sharing your journey, new self, and âhelpful messageâ to others based on your new understanding and adventure.
Thatâs success â transformation.
