Fear of success is just as daunting as a fear of failure although fear of failure may be more easily understood because fear of success is somewhat counter intuitive. Firstly, fear of success stems from the meaning that you ascribe to it. Meaning gives context and definition to an idea as in what is the importance or significance. For example, your 16 year old son comes home one evening and is sporting a new tattoo…on his face! You would ascribe a significance to it, and it would define how you felt about it, and, what you intended to do about it. With regard to success, if your meaning entails having to be stronger, smarter, or somehow better-than then this could be very scary. Or, if your father told you as a child that rich people are jerks; then on a subconscious level that would mean that in order to be rich and successful you would be a jerk. That meaning would make it difficult to follow-through with behaviors designed to get successful results.

Another subconscious fear is that when you grow, evolve and create another expression of yourself, you leave behind other aspects of yourself, which can represent inner conflicts. You may outgrow people, places and things. For instance, as a child you may have really enjoyed reading “Jack and Jill” stories; however as you grew and matured in your literary tastes, you no longer get the same level of enjoyment from reading less challenging and therefore less engaging works. As you grow and develop your sensibilities and sensitivities refine. That doesn’t mean that you have become “better” than anyone else, it’s just that your interests have expanded. Additionally and as an outcome of subconsciously considering such an idea you may harbor unconscious doubts, as in, “Have I done the right the right thing?” Or, “Will this success make me someone who I don’t want to be?”

Success can also be scary due to the level of complexity, commotion and potential turmoil that it can bring. You may be programmed to suppose that there “should” be no chaos and that would lead to subconscious limiting beliefs such as, “I can never be happy with success;” or, “Success is too chaotic for me.” These unconscious thoughts stem in part from childhood programming that seeks to stabilize chaos through “black or white” thinking; that is, it is either one way or the other, which makes it difficult to see elements of the confluence or grayness of life. The point is that this absolutist approach leaves little room for the possibilities of considering how things could be woven together.