4 Top Success Fears: How High Achievers Wrestle with Their Own Success

What if success is your biggest fear? Join me, Lisa Jeffs, as we dissect the paradoxical challenge that looms for high achievers -- the fear of success. We'll be ripping off the bandages that cover deep-seated traumas and past experiences, unravelling how these factors may lead high achievers to sabotage their own success. We'll shine a light on the often-ignored fear of increased responsibility, and how dismantling our own harmful patterns can help us unlock our true potential.

But our journey doesn't end there. Have you ever felt like a fraud in plain sight despite your achievements? Have you ever been tormented by the constant striving, never feeling satisfied? We'll take a deep dive into the self-identity challenges high achievers grapple with, such as the imposter syndrome and the fear of success. We'll explore how these challenges, often rooted in childhood, can warp our sense of self and impede our path to fulfilling our dreams. Through introspection and seeking support, we aim to provide the tools necessary to navigate these hurdles, and we invite you, our listeners, to share your insights on these complex issues.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Why would a successful high achiever sabotage their success? Well, there's a multitude of reasons why, and many of them are hidden behind the shadow of our unconscious, but we're going to uncover them in this episode. Stay tuned.

Speaker 2: 0:24

You're tuning into the confident connected leader podcast, your premiere destination for breaking through your current professional barriers. Your coach and host, Lisa Jeffs, will help you transcend limitations and achieve new levels of professional success beyond self-doubt, sabotage and burnout. Welcome to the show.

Speaker 1: 0:48

Welcome to the show. This is such an interesting topic Fear of success You'd think that, as a high achiever, where really success is constantly at the forefront of your mind, high achievers type A personalities are constantly climbing a mountain, to the extent that often, when we get to the top of the mountain, we don't even spend time to enjoy the peak before we're right back down climbing another mountain. Now, this in itself is an issue, but we're not going to go too deep into this part. We can talk about that in another episode. What we want to get into in this episode is understanding why, as successful high achievers, would we then sabotage more success from coming in?

Speaker 1: 2:07

Fear of failure is often talked about in the world of entrepreneurship or goal setting. It's understood. Even when we say I'm scared of failure, people understand that you don't have to go in depth, you don't really need to dig in and uncover. Why am I afraid of failure? It's pretty understood. However, fear of success? When we say that unless you've really self reflected and dug in and really gotten to know yourself, your history, your trauma, your patterns, it can be very easy to say, oh, I don't have a fear of success, that's not an issue for me, not an issue. But if you've been in the same bracket for a significant amount of time and you're not happy in that bracket so some people are very happy and content with where they are, where their career is, where their business is it's golden. But if you're someone who can see the peak of the mountain and you want to get there, but you're not there and you're stuck somewhere in the middle and it's been over three months, probably much longer, could be even years, and you're not moving forward, you're just kind of hovering around the same place, then there's stuff going on there and the stuff is internal. Okay, as I always say when we talk about this, forget about going into superficial. You know you beat around the bush, you do superficial. It's like putting a band-aid on a gaping wound. That band-aid is gonna get wet, it's gonna fall off and the issue, the wound, is still there. Let's get to the core. So I'm gonna share with you in this episode some of and there's a multitude, but we're not gonna go into all of them.

Speaker 1: 4:20

I'm gonna share with you a few of the top reasons that very gifted, talented high achievers, leaders will sabotage their success. And here's the caveat when I say sabotage your success. It doesn't mean that you're in the you know toilet here. It doesn't mean that you're sabotaging to the point of you're going bankrupt or you're completely blowing up your career or your business. Okay, that can be an issue, but it's typically not like that at all. It's typically where you're at a certain point, like I said, you've climbed the mountain like, let's say, halfway or even more than halfway, but you're at a point and you can't seem to break free.

Speaker 1: 5:13

This is where I am talking about. You have capped your level because there are belief systems, fears below that that are dictating your actions. They're dictating your behaviors, they're dictating your perception of how you you're even looking at your work. So why is this? Let's go into some of the top reasons why this happens Fear of increased responsibility and expectations.

Speaker 1: 5:47

So this is a very common one where, if the individual is already feeling burnt out, already feeling tired, exhausted which, let's be honest, is very common in the world of leadership, entrepreneurs, executives, people, high achievers in general when there is a fear that reaching that next level in your work, in your finances, in your business, whatever that next level that you have that the part of you really wants to get to, but there's a fear that it's going to have a lot more expectations, responsibilities, stress. Not saying I'm not saying that increased responsibility and expectations equals more stress, but I'm saying that there's a fear that it will. There's a belief system that it will. We will cap our growth. So if you're already burnt out and you're barely meeting the demands of where you are currently feeling, like you're gonna be doubling, tripling, quadrupling, that you're not going to get to that peak of the mountain. You're gonna keep yourself where you are because you're barely making it. You're already close to being burnt out. Why would you want to put on more stress and responsibilities? See, this is where we need to dig in and do our inner work and really understand our trauma, our patterns and why we would have these fears.

Speaker 1: 7:42

Did we see our parents doing this and they were burnt out and they were exhausted. I know for myself, my dad, my father he's not with us anymore, but he ran a construction. They did commercial buildings. He was very successful in his business, fantastic business but he would come home and he would be exhausted and he would use methods to decompress that weren't that healthy. I saw this growing up, so my perception of success was that you really have to sacrifice your wellbeing, and it took a long time for me to break away from this false belief system that you need to sacrifice your health and your mental health and your physical wellbeing to reach a certain point, because we will just create these ridiculous patterns and behaviors for ourselves, burn ourselves out and then, on top of that, sabotage getting to the peak. It can be a very, very such an entanglement when we are not fully understanding why we have these patterns and these behaviors. This is why doing this inner work, inner reflection, healing, is necessary. So that's a huge one, especially if you're already feeling burnt out Now.

Speaker 1: 9:18

The next one is imposter syndrome. So where we've already created a level of success that we're comfortable with, because we feel that we either deserve it or we feel we can handle it with our expectations of who we are and what we can do. But there's often this feeling, this belief system I see with you know it's funny because some of the most established, some of the most talented clients that I've worked with have had such a layer of imposter syndrome to move through and when we have a belief system that we are somehow not good enough. As the people quote unquote on top there's no, on top Like this is all an illusion, but I'm just going through what we tell ourselves. So when we have imposter syndrome, there is a belief system that there's people better than us, people on top that we are somehow not as good, to put it bluntly Then we will stop ourselves from again getting to that peak because there's a fear that if we get to that peak and we are surrounded by everyone else who is, in our mind, quote unquote better than us, we will be exposed. And that is a huge fear as a human being, not necessarily to be exposed, but it's what our subconscious, the meaning it gives that. So at the core of all this, there is a deep fear of being left like left to survive on our own, and at one point we couldn't survive on our own, we needed everyone around it. I mean, we still do. Let's be honest, people are meant to be with other people, but at one time it was critical and we would not have survived. So this false fear that's in our DNA, it's in our programming, that if we get to the peak and we are exposed as being a complete imposter in a fraud, that we will somehow not survive. This is massive with high achievers. This requires healing.

Speaker 1: 12:16

If you know that you suffer from imposter syndrome, it is insidious. It will put its tentacles in everything you're doing. It will stop you from taking opportunities. It will cap your ability to receive. Is the worst part about imposter syndrome is it's completely bollocks. When I'm talking to someone I wish you could.

Speaker 1: 12:50

Obviously I can't go into this client confidentiality. I'm not going to go into my client profiles. Some of them are just the most accomplished, established, phenomenal human beings. They have the deepest forms of imposter syndrome. They can't see it. They can't see their magic. They can't see their magic.

Speaker 1: 13:19

That is another top one why we are going to sabotage success Because we don't want to be found out. If we feel like an imposter, fear of losing the success, losing it once it's attained. So why don't we just keep ourselves where we know we can attain it? Easier, quote on quote, easier not really easy, because any sabotaging pattern is not easy to be in. It's exhausting, but if there's a fear.

Speaker 1: 14:01

So I'll give you an example. So I've worked with clients who have gone through situations where they've lost things. If you have a history of loss, whether that's you're losing people in your life, you are losing businesses, you're losing your house, you're losing things where your safety has been punctured. You don't feel safe. You will keep yourself at a certain level. Self-sabotage is a protective mechanism. You're sabotaging yourself to keep you at a level that feels safe to you.

Speaker 1: 14:42

So if there's a fear of losing success, you will keep yourself at the level of success that you feel comfortable attaining, or you even feel comfortable losing, because it's not that huge to you. It seems so. You know it might make a lot of sense or it might seem totally insane to you when I'm saying these things, because a lot of this stuff is just going on unconsciously. We're not moving around saying I'm so afraid of success, I'm so afraid of success. It usually doesn't work like that. It's. These fears are uncovered through doing work, through doing your own work, through working with a coach, working with a mentor, working with a therapist. This is why it's critical to do your inner work, because your personal work is going to be mirrored in the success you have in your career and in your business.

Speaker 1: 15:43

So the fear of losing success another huge one. I'm going to go into one more Again. There is multitude of these and if you really want to dig in and understand your own book a breakthrough call where we can have a conversation and really give you the clarity you need to move forward. Whether you decide, or we decide you're a good fit to move forward with coaching or not, you're going to leave that call with so much clarity on what's actually going on and what is keeping you from breaking through to your next level Okay, that you can book a breakthrough call though that's going to be in the show notes.

Speaker 1: 16:28

So let's go through another huge one that is so, so common and this one is really related to. Let me give you an example. So if you have grown up in a place where it's almost as if you've, let me give you an example that's going to resonate with the right people. So if you've grown up with a community that struggles a lot and that's really ingrained in your identity, like you know whether you were the underdogs or you were the, you know just people like when I grew up when I grew up that sounds really weird my growing up as a child and as a youth there was a lot of us who were struggling. All right, there's a lot of challenges going on. This was way back, you know. We were latchkey kids, kind of making it on and raising ourselves and you get tied into the identity of everyone in that group and when it's time to move away from that, that Engraignment can be so saturated within you that there's this fear of moving beyond it.

Speaker 1: 18:00

Even though a part of you can fully see yourself as a wild success and you can see how it can benefit the people in your life even some of them, let's say, that you grew up with, there's a part that can feel like you are separating from that group and this is apparent a lot from my really highly sensitive clients so my intuitive clients, highly sensitive, very empathic. There's almost this feeling of I don't want to leave people behind, I don't want people to feel bad about themselves and their situation because they're not growing and expanding. And you know I'm just going to keep myself at a level where I still feel connected to them and I feel like I am still accepted into this group. This one really requires you to do some deep reflecting and uncovering, because it's preposterous to keep ourselves at a certain level when we don't help anyone, keeping ourselves small Even if we've already achieved a great level of success. No one is helped by stopping your expansion no one, absolutely no one. So we want to make sure that if we have a fear of losing people, of people thinking that we are, you know, there's a saying where people will often say things like oh, you've changed, you've changed. Yeah, of course I've changed. That's what we're here to do is change, but it can be used as almost a dagger, an insult, something to use to hurt you. And if you are a highly sensitive person and empathic, you can be really affected by this and you will keep yourself at a certain level and sabotage your success. To remain connected to a group because they are your core group growing up, so to speak.

Speaker 1: 20:32

So which ones did resonated with you? Which ones were? You know, when I read it gave you a fear of increased responsibility and expectations. Okay, if you're burnt out, that's probably affecting your growth forward. Imposter syndrome do you feel that there's people quote unquote above you that you are somehow less than them, even though you have a whole lineup, a whole history of achievements already? Or what about the fear of losing the success so you keep yourself is attainable? Have you experienced loss in your life? That's one you want to look at.

Speaker 1: 21:29

And the last one that we talked about in this episode is the self identity challenge. So this is where we identify with, let's say, the underdog or the perpetual striver, someone who's always striving, striving, never quite getting there. Are you attached to a identity that you were when you were growing up? Let me know, send me a message if this resonates. Send me a DM, depending on where you're listening to this, and let me know does this resonate. This is huge, especially for high achievers. High achievers, fear of failure is often not an issue. The fear of success is Again. If you want to go deeper on this book, a breakthrough call. They are running for another few weeks before we go on holiday and they will pick back up in January, as always, if you are still listening to this. Thank you so much. It's an honor to have you listening and on this podcast and, as always, let's stay connected.