Why would anyone be afraid of success?  Spiders, yes. Fear of heights, sure. Anxiety and fear of public speaking, of course. But fear of success?

It might surprise you to know that many, many people - if not the majority - are actually afraid of being successful. This comes as a surprise to many people because it seems so counter-intuitive and because we often never realize that this is at the heart of achieving the results we deserve in our professional and personal lives. Consider the following thoughts and beliefs that often surface during life coaching dialogues:

• the thought that you are unworthy of having good things happen to you—good things only happen to other people
• being paralyzed by the thought that if you try and you fail, it will be too devastating
• believing that you're just not good enough, not talented enough, not competent enough, not deserving enough, etc.
• thinking that somehow anything you accomplish will explode and turn into something bad or painful down the road
• the idea that no matter how much you win and succeed, it'll never be enough to satisfy you or fill up your emptiness
• only being able to see the other people in the world that you perceive as being better than you are and feeling intimidated by them
• thinking that once (or if) you get to the top, you won't be able to stay there
• believing that once you start a project and get your hopes up, your motivation will fade and you'll just be letting yourself down

Do any of these thoughts sound familiar? If so, the first step is to recognize and acknowledge that you are sabotaging yourself with self-destructive thinking based on erroneous belief patterns. Once you identify the limiting belief(s), ask yourself what holding this belief achieved for you in the past? You see, we don’t adopt beliefs that serve no purpose. Only when you recognize and fully understand the positive purpose of the belief can you not only challenge it but replace it with a more empowering belief. Examples of positive and empowering beliefs are:

• "I am really good at giving and receiving."
• "I deserve to be paid well for my work."
• "I am good enough to have what I want."
• "I am as good as anyone to have what I want."
• "I can have what I want and be really lovable"
• "I'm the kind of person who gets what I want by asking."
• "I deserve to have what I want in life."
• "I can have what I want, and help others get what they want."
• "When I follow my heart, I create what I want."
• "I can have money and be close to my family."
• "When I really know what I want, things come to me naturally."
• "My needs are as important as anyone's."
• "I can achieve whatever I set my mind to do."
• "I can have what I want and still be connected to God."
• "I am safe to be all of who I am."

If you realize now that you do have a fear of success or you recognize that you’re still holding on to limiting beliefs, consider working with a trained and qualified life coach for assistance and guidance.

Negative emotions such as fear, stress, anxiety, guilt, or resentment burn your will power and drain your energy more and faster than anything else in your life.

Emotions are labels we put on ourselves to describe a very personal physical experience. They arise from personal judgment, low self-esteem or a lack of trust in your own capabilities. These labels confine you to an imaginary box and inhibit your innate ability to learn, grow and expand.

Seek truth in your body

When you experience anxiety, fear, stress or worry, be aware that these emotional states are logical and intuitive responses to uncertainty. However, prolonged exposure to these negative emotional states can affect your self esteem and erode your self confidence.

Pay attention to your emotions. Allow yourself to feel your stress, anxiety or fear instead of avoiding, rationalizing or judging it. How do you experience stress? How does fear express itself in your body? How does anxiety feel? How does worry move through your body?

Once you acknowledge and become fully present with your emotions, you can start to take control of your own feelings, instead of having them run your life. There is tremendous personal power in facing what feels uncomfortable at first.

In his bestselling book, “The Power of Now”, Eckhart Tolle wrote that “If you keep your attention in the body as much as possible, you will be anchored in the Now. You won’t lose yourself in the external world, and you won’t lose yourself in your mind.”

We don’t typically consider the possibility that our emotional experience is there to teach us something. When you allow yourself to feel what you’re really feeling and listen to the truth in your body, you will gain remarkable insights into who you are and the emotional needs you have been avoiding or ignoring.

Frequently returning negative emotions give you an opportunity to become more aware of what’s really going on in your life.

Start moving

Energy in motion creates emotion. The energy needed to move forward and fully engage in the process of your life comes from your emotional state. Moving will not only discharge some of your anxious energy but it will change your emotional state. You will feel like you are doing something and moving forward.

Take action

Create a list of 5 things you can do or steps you can take to make your lifestyle congruent with that what you really want and need in your life. Each step will help to further dissolve the negative emotion bit by bit, bringing hope and empowering you to continue to take action toward meeting your challenge.

We live in a world with tremendous possibilities, endless opportunities and more choices than during any other time in history.

With the choices and freedoms we enjoy, come a variety of challenges. The choices we make are not always positive. In fact, some of them can be self-destructive.

Choices bring with them increased responsibilities, challenges and changes. In the face of the myriad of options we have, our challenge is to make decisions that will advance ourselves, our communities, and our world.

Change and challenge often combined leave us in dynamic, fast paced and complex situations that we are not always prepared to deal with. Change, and the challenge of dealing with it, creates anxiety, discomfort and a feeling of uncertainty among many of us.

Dieter Pauwels is a life career coach, speaker and author based in St. Louis, MO.
He facilitates personal and organizational transformation and works with both individuals and teams to create new possibilities, navigate change and maximize their productivity and personal effectiveness. 

Throughout your life’s experiences, you accumulate assumptions, accomplishments, habits, failures, judgments, opinions, beliefs and values. You have learned to define your sense of self based on these collected experiences, judgments, opinions and beliefs. They become the filter through which you see the world and determine how you experience your life. They also become the fabric of your perceived identity. When something threatens your sense of self, you adopt fear as a natural defense mechanism.

Fear is an emotional reaction to a projected and perceived loss or a change in the image your hold about yourself.  Your fears are a direct reflection of your most dominant thoughts, feelings and emotions that you associate with a future event.

The more you identify  - who you are - with, for example a job, a relationship, or making a certain amount of money, the more likely you will experience fear, anxiety and the need to control when circumstances change.

Other self sabotaging behaviors in the face of fear include procrastination, lack of focus, anger or resentment and pleasing others.

Free yourself from fear!
 
1) Identify the things you fear the most.

I’m afraid that …
I’m afraid to ….
I feel scared when …

2) Discover the underlying core fear.

Core human fears include commitment, responsibility, change, loss, confrontation, not measuring up and rejection.

What does your most dominant fear tell you about yourself and how you view and perceive the world around you? Identify any erroneous or limiting beliefs or assumptions about yourself. Listen to what you’re telling yourself, what’s your inner critic telling you?

3) Ask yourself :"Who would I be without that fear?"

During a life coaching conversation, a coaching client expressed her fear of getting hurt again in personal relationships. I asked her the following question: “Who would you be without that fear?"

She responded, "A more confident person who is open to new possibilities and willing to take chances."
Next I asked her, "What would be the opposite of the fear of being hurt?"
She responded: "The freedom to love and be loved."
"And isn't that what you really want?" I asked.

4) Focus on what you truly want.

The moment you focus on what you really want, instead of what you don't want, your mental energy is free to move you forward.  You no longer have to waste any resources thinking about the stuff you no longer want in your life. 

Some inner resources you want to draw on to create the results you desire, and free yourself from fear include self confidence, trust, commitment, creativity, flexibility, honesty, and patience and love. 

5) Adopt empowering beliefs that support what you really want.

In order to access these resources however, requires new and empowering beliefs.  Your beliefs should be positive and supportive of the changes you want to make, or the things you want to achieve.

When you change your beliefs, you change your expectations. When your expectations change, your attitude and consequent behavior changes!

"Ultimately we know deeply that the other side of every fear is a freedom."  
(Marilyn Ferguson)

Here are some techniques to use to help you shift your focus to supportive and positive beliefs: 

• Think of someone who could be a mentor to you. This person could be a friend, a parent, a spiritual leader, an author, co-worker, or anyone else who represents those inner resources and qualities that you seek.
  
• Ask yourself what this person believes. Then ask them directly what their beliefs are that help them to be successful. Give yourself the advice you think he or she would give you regarding your fears and limiting beliefs.

Realize that there is a causal relationship between the beliefs you hold about reality and the real events that just "seem" to happen to you.  You live your beliefs and therefore you seek the evidence to support them!

Ultimately, you are responsible for the changes you make in your life. The good news is that you already have the inner qualities and resources you need to make the changes you want. Accessing them requires confronting your fears, challenging your self-limiting beliefs, and then shifting your focus to move forward.  Once the choice to move forward opens up to you, seize the opportunity and choose freedom over fear!

About Dieter Pauwels:

Dieter Pauwels is a professional certified life, business and career coach, speaker and author, facilitating personal and organizational transformation. He works with both individuals and teams to create new possibilities, manage change and maximize their productivity and personal effectiveness.

You can visit his website at www.dieterpauwels.com or read his comments and thoughts on the impact of coaching on life and business on his blog at http://lifecoaching.dieterpauwels.com
 

Energy in motion creates emotion. The energy needed to move forward and fully engage in the process of your life comes from your emotional state. People who successfully manage their emotional state are masters of their own destiny! Unless you manage your fear, it will manifest itself as a negative emotion.  When this happens, fear blocks the energy you need to follow through on your goals, and create positive changes in your life. If you turn your fear around, however, you can use this "fear factor" as a powerful motivator to break through mental barriers.

When you allow fear to control your life, it creates strong emotional and physical reactions. Fear is what is behind comments like, I choked, I froze, or I felt paralyzed.  The reason you choke, freeze, or feel paralyzed in the face of fear, is because you get stuck in a single and limited perspective about the meaning of the fear that controls you.

Identify Self Limiting Beliefs 

Once you have identified the fear that has the most control over you, you then want to examine the limiting beliefs you hold about that fear. To elicit your limiting beliefs, ask yourself the following:

• What does the fear mean to you? For instance:  What does failure mean to you? What does rejection mean to you? What does change mean to you?
  
• What are the specific characteristics of the fear that are so troubling?
  
• What does it mean to be the victim of the fear?  What does it mean to be a failure?  What does it mean to be rejected?  What does it mean to face change? 
  
• How do you believe you will feel, or be perceived, if you fall victim to the fear?
  
• Do you view the situation as an opportunity for growth or simply another reason to quit trying?

The fear itself is not holding you back so much as what you believe will happen if the fear actually turns out to be legitimate.  If you believe that your fears will cause only a temporary set back, you are much more likely to take a risk, than if you believe your fears will result in a permanent and negative outcome. 

The beliefs you hold about failure and success directly affect your emotional state and they greatly influence your behavior. Your behavior in turn influences the results you get. It is only when your results change, that your life will change!

When you change your perspective and inner representation about the fears that hold you back, you will build the self-confidence and trust necessary to move forward and fully engage in the process of your life.  Reaching this full engagement requires that you cast away the fear and the limiting beliefs. 

About Dieter Pauwels:

Dieter Pauwels is a professional certified life, business and career coach, speaker and author, facilitating personal and organizational transformation. He works with both individuals and teams to create new possibilities, manage change and maximize their productivity and personal effectiveness.

You can visit his website at www.dieterpauwels.com or read his comments and thoughts on the impact of coaching on life and business on his blog at http://lifecoaching.dieterpauwels.com
 

"You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience
in which you really stop to look fear in the face."   (Eleanor Roosevelt)

In times of change and adversity, we are all challenged to make choices and to make decisions. You may not be responsible for the circumstances or changes, like the breakdown of our financial system, but you are responsible for the decisions you make within those circumstances.

During his inaugural speech in January of 1961 John Kennedy said, “Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country," These words not only challenged a generation, it also ignited a spirit of shared interest and selflessness that made us feel like we could belong to something bigger than ourselves.

Today’s obstacles and challenges are our calls to action. You can either accept that calling and take full responsibility for your actions, or you can choose to ignore it.

Napoleon Hill, author of Think and Grow Rich, once said that every adversity, every failure, and every heartbreak, carries with it the seed of an equivalent or greater benefit.

I want you to think about a time in your life, or a meaningful moment when you faced adversity or a personal challenge. Perhaps it was the loss of a loved one, the breakdown of a relationship, conflict with a coworker, struggling with a career decision….

Whatever the situation is that you are thinking about right now, I suspect it was a moment when you learned something significant about yourself – yet the lesson didn't come until later. If the situation was significant enough for you to recall just now, then you likely came through the ordeal knowing more about who you are and what you are really capable of. That's the beauty of adversity that so many people fail to embrace.

Think again about that meaningful moment, "What were some of the emotions and feelings you experienced leading up to it? Perhaps you felt discomfort, anxiety, doubt, inner turmoil, panic, fear, despair or confusion… Not the kind of emotions we associate with positively.

So the question is, "What is it that makes these moments so valuable and important, so powerful that we should actually want to attract these kinds of experiences in our lives?"

The answer lies in what happens after these 'growth' or change experiences. Looking back, what were some of the emotions and feelings you experienced afterwards? Perhaps you felt more powerful and confident? Maybe you developed some new insights, built a higher self-esteem, a greater team spirit, more self-confidence or more serenity?

Aren't these the experiences that make life worth living? Aren't these the moments of truth that define us as people, as a community, as an organization? You better believe it.

The challenges are opportunities for you to break out of your cocoon and let go of the limiting beliefs and fears that are blocking you. Just as a caterpillar must escape its cocoon to grow and become the butterfly it was meant to be, so too you must look for opportunity in those experiences that challenge you to break free from past habits, thoughts, reactions, and ideas. One cannot become a butterfly by remaining a caterpillar! And once you experience life as a butterfly, you will never want to go back to being a caterpillar.

My experiences working as a professional life coach with many people going through intense periods of change, tell me that we should welcome challenges and obstacles as opportunities to grow.

I'm convinced that it is through times of change and adversity that we have an opportunity to reconnect with our true selves, that we find meaning and direction in what we do, and then use our new found knowledge to serve the greater good.

Think about the stagnation you'd encounter if everything were to stay the same, your company, your job, the people you work with, the environment – you would certainly have certainty and you would certainly know what to expect, but you would almost certainly be bored, unproductive, and uncreative.

The price of certainty seems much too high to pay. Change, on the other hand, can exhilarate you, it can motivate you, it can inspire you – and yes, it can scare you, but you don't have to let it defeat you.

Change is inevitable but to grow from it is a personal choice!

You can choose to withdraw or reconnect. If you choose to reconnect, you are choosing to create something that can be better and more successful than ever before.

The choice is yours alone to make!