8 Ways To Combat Achievemephobia - Fear of success!

"You've failed again!", Audu's father bellowed. "This is your third attempt at UTME, why do you keep failing?", His mum quizzed. Audu's reply left every one in the room in abject dismay. Trembling to his feet, "I'm scared of being successful", he said. Utterly bewildered, Audu's father was left with his mouth wide agape, lost between either scolding his son or mollify him.

Mid Week Drive by Lambe Olanrewaju

As shocking as it may sound, significant percentage of today's world population are victim of fear of success. We're all accustomed to people having phobia for failue, but definitely not fear of being successful. Thousands of Audu presently live in our world and they go about with presage that they can never be successful irrespective of their attempts at achieving a tangible degree of success.

Fear of success is quite similar to fear of failure. They virtually have same symptoms, and both most definitely hold you back from achieving your goals, dreams and objectives. Fear of success is that stumbling block your subconscious create, acting as a barrier between you and your goals. It prevents you from taking a step forward towards accomplishing something great. Fear of success is a personally inflicted bondage, as the victim won't be able to move outside his/her thinking box or projected confinement. The person is limited to a spot. The person who fears success will usually be living with an internal conflict because a part of him wants to succeed and achieve certain goals while the other part wants to hold him back because of the fear of success. Most victims tend to choose the latter. Not only will your fear of success prevent you from making achievements but it will also affect your performance in other life fields. As a result of carrying this fear your subconscious mind may work against you to prevent you from succeeding!! In fact one of the main reasons you might be experiencing continued failures in other life fields is that your subconscious mind is trying to make you fail because of your fear of success!!!

Causes of Fear of Success

Fear of Spotlight: Not everyone is ready and willing to embrace the special attention that accompany success. Such people love their simple life and believe can't withstand the flashes of the camera. They're always low on self confidemce and think they're better of shying away from public view.

Fear of Change: Fear of change can also be termed as fear of alteration or modification to one's lifestyle (which might include loneliness, isolation from family, longer working hours etc. Success will sure result in changes in some aspect odf your life. Also, some people are too contented with their comfort zone and they're scared to make adjustment to it. This inadvertently leads to fear of success.

Fear of Hardwork: Success requires sustenance and maintenance. Some degree of hard work is the sole ingredient. Some people fear they might not be able to generate enough hardwork needed to sustain their newly found status quo and therefore decide not to even try to succeed at all.

Fear of Standing out: People with fear of success shy away from responsibility. Blending in with the crowd become their only means of survival. It means they don't get to deal with rejection, worry or criticism that is attached to being in the spotlight. They don't want to be the one to take the bull by the horn or get hold of a situation the the nucha. They're always crowd pleaser. If everyone say A, they will play along even if they know the right answer is B. All because they're scared of standing out or being different. 

Combating Fear of Success

It is no mere feat to be successful in life. Success is borne out of fearlessness, sheer determination, unwaivered focus and God's intervention.

Adumbrated below are strategies that could help overcome fear of success.

1. Confront Your Fears: Consider your fears as a mountain which is surmountable. Your attitude and reaction towards your fear could either bring it (your fear) all crumbling down or add up building block and make it more difficult to overcome. Remember, your fear is a deception of ur subconscious mind. Break free from it by confronting it head on.

2. Don't Give Up!: I've heard stories of people who gave up on being successful and developed a phobia for success simply because they failed at the first hurdle. My mum used to sing a song which goes thus, "Don't give up, it's not over. When you give up, then it's over. Hold on to the Lord, trouble not your head. Even when people say it's over, its not over!" When people say it's over for you, dig deep and bring out a brand new reinvigorated self belief. Beat your chest and say to yourself, 'I can do this, I can make it, I'm who i believe I am.' As the holy book says, "As a man thinketh in his heart so he is." Thomas Edison invented the light bulb on his 10,000 and 1 attempt. When he was quizzed on why he failed that much, he said, "I have not failed, i've just found 10000 ways that won't work. Am sure many of us would have given up way before the 10000th mark. Sow a seed towards self belief. Take every pinch of failure as another opportunity to go back to the drawing board and produce something better. Rewrite your personal orientation and build up a Lion's heart towards being achieving substantial greatness in life.

3. Remain Assertive: Never for once should you doubt your potential. Trust and believe in yourself. We all know the road to success is always rough but remaining self-assured will help you conquer all fears of success. Winston Churchill famously said, "Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm." The starting point of all achievement is desire to succeed void of any cloud of fear or doubt. The moment you end up losing faith in yourself marks the beginning of your downfall while the moment you end up trusting yourself marks the beginning of your resurgence. You can only achieve something great when you quit being a self-saboteur.

4. Get Out of Your Comfort Zone: Stop being comfortable with mediocrity. Some people will even tell you, "So long am hale and hearty and I can comfortably feed without external contribution, I don't have to stress myself trying to achieve more than necessary." You should ask yourself, Is this God's plan for me? Will I ever be proud and happy with this level ten years from now? If your answer to these questions is NO, then you've no point remain in that position. Start by embracing workloads and responsibilities. Be eager to take risks and move forward on your goals. Strive hard and embrace the spirit of elevation. This singular decision will help shape your destiny positively and free you from the shackles of fear of success.

5. Be Driven by People's Success: Create the mentality of "If they can do it, I can do much better." Almost everything on this planet has been done by someone else already at one time or another. I'm sure there is a case similar to yours. Usually achievement isn't rocket science. Analyze what you have to do to achieve your goal. What do you have in common with the person who has already achieved a goal similar to yours? What else do you need to have or need to change about yourself? What obstacles are in your way and how can you overcome them? Noone get thrown into this world as a victor. Every single successful person on earth strived to be what they're today. Take a look at their lives and achievements. Learn how they came from obscurity to prominence. Digest how they've been to cope and maintain their success. This will help drive you towards freedom from fear of success. Once you do all that, consider 80% of your job to be done. The key to your success is following someone else's example while making your contribution unique.

6. Learn: People are always scared of what they don’t know. If you have a fear of something you just have to educate yourself about it. It is like walking into a dark room. At first you feel scared and don’t know what to expect but once you turn the light on, everything gets clear and simple.

7. Quit Procrastination: People with fear of success tend to procrastinate a lot even unknowingly. They keep postponing tasks ought to be done right away for no definite reason. They have ready-made flimsy excuses to throw around for not undergoing a project or task. If you really want to succeed in life, you need to quit all form of procrastination. Procrastination will only derail your dreams and aspirations if it's not fully curbed. It's hightime you stopped avoiding that big project simply because you know it will lead you to become widely recognized. Quit compromising your own goals or agenda with excuse like you want to avoid conflict in the group if you vie for that top position. Fears that are never evaluated consciously have a tendency to grow stronger. The reason is simple behavioral conditioning — when you avoid something you fear (either consciously or subconsciously), you automatically reinforce the avoidance behavior. So when you (even unknowingly) avoid working on your goal because of a hidden fear of success, you actually reinforce the habit of procrastination, so as time goes by, it becomes harder and harder to get yourself to take action. Insidious! The earlier you understand the dangers of procrastination, the faster you get geared up towards being successful.

8. Work Hard, Play Hard and Pray Harder: The bigger the bills, the bigger your dreams, the harder you should ball amd work. Success does not come cheap. After convincing yourself that you've got the potential to shine bright and defeat fear of success, the next conviction you should have is show of pure determination, refined hardwork and tireless endeavours towards achieving your goals. Vince Lombardi - a great footballer in his heyday - famously said, "The price of success is hard work, dedication to the job at hand, and the determination that whether we win or lose, we have applied the best of ourselves to the task at hand; The difference between a successful person and others is not a lack of strength, not a lack of knowledge, but rather a lack of will." 

Above all, put God first  in your efforts and strives at being successful. Seek him for all round intervention in your life and he's sure going to crown your efforts with resounding success.

Please, your feedback, comments and questions are very important. Please post a comment/question in the comment box below. Follow on twitter @thisseidublog and @simply_lanre for more updates. 

I'll leave you with this quote from Abraham Lincoln, "Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important than any other." Till we meet again, enjoy the rest of the week. Stay positive!