We have all heard the term ‘fear of success’ but few actually understand what it means. I think ‘fear of success’ may be one of the human being’s biggest problems yet little is written about it.
It was Freud who first wrote about it in his 1925 essay “Those Wrecked by Success” but no one has been able to expand upon this odd and counter intuitive concept since then.
Freud suggested that success often to illness since people often feel undeserving and sometimes guilty about success.
Well, let’s take a moment and try to deconstruct this odd term ‘fear of success.’
The best way to understand something is to find a good example of it. So let’s take Naomi Osaka, formerly the tennis world’s No. 1 ranked player and see what we can learn.
It certainly was not a fear of failure that prompted her to walk away from fame and fortune at the ripe old age of 21. In her farewell note to the tennis world she admitted that she was just too sensitive to continue to try to cope with the pressure, the questions from the media and the expectations placed upon her young shoulders.
She had enough and said ‘no more.’
She is not alone in her inability to cope with the crucible of success and the pressure it brings.
The “27 Club” refers to the many celebrities who committed suicide by drug overdose at age 27 to escape from the anxiety-ridden pressure of success.
This would include Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Kurt Cobain, and Jim Morrison to name but a few. Some lasted a little longer like Marilyn Monroe and Michael Jackson.
These are all good examples of the level of anxiety experienced when one finally gets to that magical place where you get to drink from the poisoned chalice of fame and fortune.
Now you may ask yourself, that’s all well and good but how does all that apply to little old me? How could I suggest that the fear of success is mankind’s biggest problem, even bigger than your fear of failure?
To answer that I will use one of Carl Jung’s favorite metaphors called liminal space.
Liminal space is the concept which means that there are doorways or thresholds that we must walk through to get to the next level of success. He called these doorways liminal space, the process of transition or the threshold to the next level.
Anthropologist Arnold van Gennep and noted mythologist Joseph Campbell also frequently wrote of liminal space in a religious or spiritual context.
But we do not have to go beyond the every day to observe there threshold spaces that we are faced with if we are to transcend ourselves and become a success.
A salesman who must make that phone call, a golfer who must finish off the round in order to win an event or a young man who wants to say hello to the girl of his dreams, these are all threshold moments that we need to get through in order to succeed.
But, alas, many of us sense the danger involved in getting to the next level not just because we fear rejection as we walk through the doorway, but because we fear the anxiety and pressure to be felt when we get into the next room.
The salesman knows that after he makes the call, he will have to have that extended conversation in order to make the sale.
The golfer knows that if he continues to make pars, the closer he gets to 18, the more anxiety he will experience.
And the young man who is afraid to say hi to the girl of his dreams also realizes that after he says hello, he is going to be faced with the pressure of an extended conversation. It is only the movie “Jerry Maguire” that the girl says “You had me with hello.”
Life is never that simple.
I think the fear of success is something that most people experience subconsciously and this means that success is assiduously avoided by them.
Instead of trying to grab the brass ring and go for it all, people turn away, embrace mediocrity and leave all the heroics to movie stars and athletes. It is enough for most people to experience the tension of pressure, warfare or competitive anxiety from the safety and security of the couch.
Or as Arnold “The Terminator” Schwarzenegger would say “no pain, no gain and no guts, no glory.”
Most people say they want success but I think most are instinctively afraid of what happens when they get there.
Do they have the guts, the fortitude and stamina to handle the pressure? I can almost hear a Jack Nicholson shout “Pressure! Pressure! You punk, you can’t handle pressure!”
The truth is that the higher you go up, the tougher the competition and the tougher the foes you must face. That seems to be the truth of it and the question is how does one go about finding the courage to walk through that doorway and live up to one’s true potential?
