How Becoming Successful Can Fill You With More Fear Than You Have Ever Experienced Before

The way we humans behave at times is completely topsy-turvy

Recently, Liberty Forrest, Author shared a great article about how to avoid the fear of success and invited readers to share their own experiences with this crazy fear.

This immediately brought me back to my first year of full-time coaching. A year when everything fell so perfectly into place, money started flowing into my life and my bank account like it never had before, and my calendar was almost always booked up with clients.

This was literally the stuff of my dreams. All I had wanted for several years was to be earning good money from home, supporting my children without help from anyone else, and covering all my costs without ever needing to worry, with enough left over to pay for fun times and treats.

Finally, I had it all going on. But, you know what? I was so afraid of losing it that my psychological well-being was in disarray and I found myself panicking more than I had ever panicked while I was struggling financially.

I was utterly fearful of it all coming crashing down on me.

Total imposter syndrome

“Having a low opinion of yourself is not ‘modesty.’ It’s self-destruction. Holding your uniqueness in high regard is not ‘egotism.’ It’s a necessary precondition to happiness and success.” ― Bobbe Sommer

The thing that stood out the most was that I felt that I didn’t deserve to hold the position that I did.

The coaching we offered was for solo business owners who were getting their businesses off the ground by leveraging social media. This was something I, myself, had learned and put into practice for my own business. I was perfectly adept in using blogging, live video and Facebook ads, and had mastered ad copy, sales copy, video creation, the tech side of sales funnels, and building digital products.

I guess that was a big reason why I was offered the place. I know that my personality had also played a bigger part, reflected by the ease with which the team leader and I had conversed on our initial Zoom call.

Yet, I had this constant niggling feeling that I didn’t deserve the place; that I wasn’t really good enough to be sitting there, offering support to others. I felt this way despite the fact that I was clearly more experienced than several of the other coaches.

Besides this, our coaching was designed to help people to move closer to the bigger goals and dreams that we would discuss on these calls. Many of these dreams sounded like something from another world to me!

I was coaching people with dreams of owning mansions, fancy cars and second homes around the world, yet none of that appealed to me in the slightest.

I was feeling like an imposter. What did I really have to offer, and what “lifestyle” achievements did I have to prove that I was worthy of being paid to support others? None.

My dreams and goals were nothing of the sort.

All I really desired was a life that flows smoothly, the ability to fix up anything that needs fixing, a car that works with ease, enough money for nice meals out, and a couple of holidays each year. All these people with whom I spoke were leagues away from the kinds of dreams and goals I harboured.

And so, the first obstacle I was experiencing here was a feeling of not belonging.

Too good to be true

It felt like I was living an existence that belonged to someone else and that the universe would recognise that before long and swap me out to put the right person into these shoes.

This created such a deep fear in me of returning to a life of having to struggle every month to pay the bills that I decided to focus on the money fear over any other fears.

I found hypnosis and subliminal brain-training audios that I was told would help my mind to believe that I deserved this financial abundance I was experiencing. Not only that, but it would help me to continue to attract the financial abundance that I so desired for the long term.

The truth was that none of it worked. The more I listened to these kinds of audios, the less I felt as if I was ever going to reach the point of psychological self-belief and calm around money.

It felt as if the more I did to resolve my fears, the further the end goal of resolution became. Whatever effort I was making, the opposite of the desired effect seemed to be coming into play.

And the long-term effect?

Disappointment.

It wasn’t so much that I wasn’t doing well but I had, by this point, placed such enormous expectations on myself that I only managed to disappoint myself by falling short of the goalposts that I believed represented success.

A great lesson learned

During this period, I tried so hard to prove to myself that I could “be a success”, whatever that even meant, that I overworked myself into exhaustion. And, no one can be effective if they are exhausted.

I honestly lost a grip on what a successful life really meant. At that point, I was so focused on measuring success with monetary gains that I forgot to prioritise myself and a joyful life with my children.

“No one can be effective if they are exhausted.”

I barely gave them any quality time. I simply kept my chin above water and kept our home running smoothly.

The one thing I did prioritise was time spent with them in the evenings. We always had a lovely sit-down meal together and would often watch some great comedy. But, when I look back at that time, we had few beach trips together, despite living close to some of Britain’s most beautiful coastline, and despite the fact that we had one of the warmest and sunniest springs and summers that year.

The burnout eventually forced me to stop devoting all of my time to working and, come the following year, I couldn’t bear the thought of being tied to work instead of enjoying the summer and my children.

When I really sat and thought about it, the money was not the real source of my fear — the attitude towards what money represented was the true issue at hand. What I believed was a fear of having less than enough was actually a fear of not being enough in myself.

All my life, I have forced myself to overwork in order to prove myself. Despite believing that money was the end goal, money coming easily to me was actually counterproductive to my belief that success could only come if I worked harder than is humanly possible.

It turned out that financial success and abundance — in my subconscious — were actually representative of being lazy and spoilt, and so I pushed them away continuously, despite believing that I was doing my best to attract it.

Finally, I discovered “doing what I love”

The biggest change I made was to go from taking clients via a company to taking my own private clients.

This meant having to find clients of my own, but it also meant that I could adjust my prices accordingly and have more control over my regular income. I realised that the tie to being on Zoom calls every single day was tearing me apart, and the freedom to control my own hours was screaming to me. And so, I took fewer clients and accepted less money.

However, I found myself offering a different service to my clients, on top of the coaching — to write their social media copy for them. Because the writing side of things came easily to me, and it was something I could do entirely in my own time, it made complete sense.

And, they were utterly appreciative to have that service in addition to the coaching and mentoring that I gave them.

Eventually, I realised how much happier I was spending my time quietly writing in my own time, rather than having my days sliced up by Zoom calls and having my energy drained by always being engaged in the world of someone else.

My focus turned to writing.

“I understood myself only after I destroyed myself. And only in the process of fixing myself, did I know who I really was.” ― Sade Andria Zabala

Self-belief is shaped by following your heart

Money will never stop being the ultimate goal of my business activity, for we all have to live and exist. Money is a tool and a fabulous one at that.

But I learned that money isn’t the tool by which my success is measured, only the tool through which I support myself and others, and through which we can gift ourselves and others.

The real measure of success, as I have discovered, is a happy heart.

A happy heart leads to a healthy life, and a quality that overrides any symbols of luxury.

I no longer fear success because it no longer feels separate from my current life. I know that I need to continue to grow my income but, these days, I am calm about it. Because I am doing what I love — writing…and coaching but in a really self-nurturing way that doesn’t compromise myself, my time, or my energy.

Because I prioritised following my heart over everything else, I have reached a level of self-belief that, before, I was desperately searching for, to no avail.

I believe in myself, and I love the life I am choosing. With that, I trust that everything else will follow.

Thanks for reading! Please check out this beautiful and vulnerable piece from Bernice Puzon:

And a little something extra from me:

Thanks for reading! If you aren’t yet a Medium member and would love to have unlimited access to read the work of all your favourite writers, please consider joining through my referral link.