This is The Write Now Podcast with Sarah Werner, Episode 83: Fear Of Success. 

Welcome to Write Now, the podcast that helps all writers, aspiring, professional, and otherwise, to find the time, energy, and courage you need to pursue your passion and write. I’m your host, Sarah Werner. Today, I’m talking about something that, well, I feel like I preface all of my episodes like, “Oh, hey. This is something we never talk about,” but today I’m talking about something that we don’t talk enough about. It’s something that I didn’t even know existed until I experienced it for myself. That’s right. I am talking about, as you already know, because you saw the title of this episode, the fear of success.

Now, I’ve talked about fear a lot on this show before, and I’ve specifically talked about the fear of failure. You can go back all the way, years and years ago, to an episode I did in 2015, it’s episode number 18, and it’s called Fail A Lot. I talk about why it’s important for us to fail, despite our fear of failure. Being afraid of failure makes sense, because there’s consequences to failing that are kind of scary. We are naturally resistant to both fear and to failure. In that episode, I encourage you to just experiment, to fail freely, to fail a lot, to fail as much as you can, because that’s how we move forward. What we’re moving forward to is success.

I feel like a lot of us are afraid of the success that we’re moving toward. Success on its surface seems like a weird thing to be afraid of, because success is something that we want or it’s something that we’ve been told that we want. How could we be afraid of something good? How could we be afraid of something that we want? It doesn’t make logical sense, but just because it doesn’t make sense, doesn’t mean that it’s not real. I saw a quote on the internet years and years ago, and I just always keep this in mind. It’s something to the effect of humans are big, messy bags of emotion. We’re not as logical as we want to be, and logical is not the be all and end all. Logical is not the ultimate good, and emotion is not bad. It’s not the ultimate bad. We’re a mix of both, and that’s what a healthy human being is supposed to be.

A lot of our fears are based in logic, but also a lot of our fears are based in emotion. I feel like fear of failure is the obvious fear. It makes sense. It makes sense to be afraid of something with potentially bad consequences, but why on Earth would we be afraid of success? It’s something that’s real. I’ve seen it in myself. Over the years, as I’ve spoken with more and more writers, we’ve seen it in them. I’ve watched it develop in writers as they move from the beginner phase to a more successful phase of their writing careers. I’ve noticed that we hold ourselves back and we keep ourselves playing small, and it’s because in a way we are afraid of success. We’re afraid of what happens when we move forward. We’re afraid of what happens when we change. We’re afraid of what happens when we start playing big.

We’re not necessarily afraid of the success itself. We’re afraid of all of the stuff, all of the baggage that comes along with it. A lot of times when we experience the fear of success and all of that stuff that comes with it, we’re not prepared for it. All along my writing journey I was told like, “Hey. You’re going to face failure, and it’s going to be scary, but that’s okay. Just lean into the failure. Experiment with it. Just keep pushing forward.” Not one person ever has told me that, “Hey, Sarah. Along your writer’s journey you might also fear success, and it also might keep you back. It might keep you small.” Nobody ever told me that fear of success was a thing that I would have to deal with. I had to very, very slowly realize, hey, wait a minute. Why am I afraid of good things that are happening?

Let’s think for a moment. Why are we afraid of things? We’ve talked about fear a little bit before on the show. This will just be a quick recap. Fear keeps us safe. We fear things that could harm us, literally or figuratively. Again, this is a good thing. Fear is a healthy instinct. Fear keeps us from walking in front of a bus on a busy street. Fear keeps us from taunting bears while we’re camping. Fear keeps us from getting hurt, or burned, or falling out of a really high window. Fear, in a way, is there to keep us safe. As we’ve talked about before on this show, fear is not something that will ever go away. I want to be really clear about that. Fear is not an evil thing that we banish and one day we decide, “You know what? I’m done with fear. Goodbye forever, fear,” and then we never feel fear again. That’s not how we are chemically put together. That’s not how instinct works. You can lessen the fear and you can work through the fear, but fear is not a problem that we can solve.

What we can do, as I learned from my wonderful therapist, Rebecca, is we can acknowledge the fear and say, “Yes, fear. I see you exist. Thank you for keeping me safe. Now, I’m going to put you to the side, and I’m going to drive this bus forward.” Acknowledge the fear. Thank the fear for keeping us safe. It’s just doing its job. It’s not here to do anything necessarily bad to us. Put it aside. When we look at it that way, fear of failure and fear of success are simply two sides of the same coin. Fear at its core wants to keep us safe. Just as failure carries consequences with it and potential risks and changes, so does success. We fear something good, because it takes us out of a known, familiar, safe, and comfortable zone. Success brings along with it risk, decision-making, uncertainty, change, potential discomfort, potential rejection, and these are all things that feel unsafe. When you look at it that way, yeah, it makes sense.

Let’s back up a second and talk about success and what it means specifically for you as a writer. Again, I’m going to quickly reference an older episode of the Write Now Podcast again that I did way back in 2015. 2015 must have been a really good year for me. I don’t know. But this is episode 23 of the Write Now Podcast, and it’s called What Does Success Look Like For You? That’s really the key that I want to touch on in today’s episode is that we’ve been told our entire lives that we want success. No matter where you live around the world, and people all over the globe listen to this show, I think that in some way society, and culture, and your family, and your friends, and maybe even just from yourself, you’re being pushed toward success with a capital S. We’ve been told our whole lives that this is something that we want and something that we should want. You should want to be successful, right?

But when does someone ever tell you what success is? What is this thing that we’re supposed to want? When we’re growing up, maybe it’s a gold star on a chart. Maybe it’s an A on a test. Maybe it’s being able to run the presidential fitness mile or whatever in gym class. Maybe it’s making the football team. Maybe it’s winning a science fair. We are told early on in life that success is something that we should want. Now, some of us, depending on how we were brought up and who was present in our lives, success has been more accessible to some of us than to others. Some of us are told from an early age, “I believe in you. Success is within your reach. I know you can do this,” and some of us are told, “You’ll never amount to anything. You can’t do this. Why are you even bother trying? You’re nothing.”

Maybe you’ve proved everyone wrong, and maybe you’ve proved everyone right, no matter what you’ve been told. Maybe you found success and you were always told you were going to fail, or maybe you’ve found failure when you were always told you were going to succeed. Maybe you fulfilled the prophecy that other people have set out for you. Everyone’s journey is different, and everyone’s version of success is going to be different. This is the great news. This is absolutely wonderful news, that no matter where you’ve been in your life, no matter what people have told you, starting today you get to define what your life looks like moving forward. You get to define what success means for you as a writer. You get to set yourself on a path toward that success.

Success is relative. This is something I have been learning over the last several years. Success is relative, and it does not look the same for everyone. This is really tricky, because I think that when we look for success, we want to see something. We want to see here’s a picture of what it will look like when I am successful, and I want that defined, so I know when I’ve reached it. But unfortunately, there’s a lot of different pictures of success that bombard us. You might look at your next door neighbor and see a beautiful, green lawn, and a beautiful, big house, and a smiling family, and they’re out there barbecuing something, and there’s a happy dog running around. They just look so happy and delightful. Maybe that’s one picture of success, or maybe you look at a celebrity who’s wearing a $65,000 pair of shoes or something, and maybe to you that looks like success. Maybe you’re in a bookstore and you’re looking at a featured section where an author’s books are prominently displayed, and that to you looks like success. Maybe your friend just got a short story published in a literary magazine, and to you that looks like success.

Success could be one of these things. Success could be all of these things. It all comes down to what you want. I feel like for a lot of us that’s the hardest question of all, and answering that question is terrifying. It is so much easier to be told, “Hey. Yes. Here is where you’re at. You’re at point A. Here’s what success is, and that’s point B. Here’s a roadmap to get from point A to point B. When you’re at point B, you’ll be happy forever.” That sounds really great, but that’s not how it works. I think for some of us we perceive that that’s how success works. When we get to the place in life where we have the $65,000 pair of shoes and we’re smiling on a red carpet, just because we’ve been told that that’s what success looks like, that doesn’t mean that that’s what success means for us, because I have the feeling that some of those people in the $65,000 shoes on the red carpet are feeling unfulfilled and empty inside, because they’ve attained a version of success that is incomplete. They’ve attained a version of success that they did not define for themselves. They are following someone else’s path, and they have landed at someone else’s success, and they don’t like it.

We need to decide what success is for us. We need to figure out, A, what we actually want, and B, how we are going to obtain what we actually want. We need to clear away all of the stuff that we’ve been told that we want that might not actually be fulfilling for us. Some of this we don’t know until we get there. I got to a certain place of success in my writing, and in my career, and in my business where I was successful, but I didn’t like the way it felt. I was technically successful, but I wasn’t happy. I wouldn’t have known that unless I would have gone down that path and experimented. This is, I think, where a little bit of the fear creeps in, because what if we work really hard for something and then we realized we’re not happy with it?

When you reach that point, and you probably will at some point in your writing career or in some part in your writer’s journey, that’s when you have to acknowledge it, set a different course, and continue moving forward. I think life is a slowly unfolding realization of what success means for us. We are constantly changing and defining what we want out of life, because we’re growing as people. We change along the way, and that’s a good thing. We change, and we grow, and we learn, and we adapt. The same thing that you wanted when you were five years old, that might not be your dream when you’re 35. The thing that you wanted when you were 20 might not be the same thing that you want when you’re 47. That’s okay. We change, and that is healthy. We evolve, and that is good. Our vision of success changes along with us.

Success is a lot more complex than what we establish it to be. Success is a lot more complex than crossing a finish line, or getting a gold star on a chart, or buying a $65,000 pair of shoes. I think that complexity is where a lot of our fear comes from. Complexity is part of why success can be scary. We don’t know what to expect. We don’t know what to prepare for. It carries with it risk, decision, uncertainty, and change. Of course it makes sense that we’re resistant to that. Our fear is keeping us safe. Our fear is keeping us from that risk, that decision-making, that growth, that discomfort. Change is good, but it also carries with it a massive element of the unknown. It’s okay that that is scary.

Fear keeps us safe, but fear also keeps us comfortable. I think a lot of the time our fear would rather have us stay where we are in a mediocre situation than take a risk and truly succeed. I think this is what traps a lot of writers and keeps a lot of writers from growing, because it has kept me in the same place. I’ve only just recently realized this. It’s more comfortable to stay where you are, wrapped in mediocrity, like an old, worn out blanket, than it is to take a step, and risk a change, and find success, which is why it’s so important that you realize what you want. If you want comfort and if you want mediocrity, that’s what you want, and that’s relative, and that is what you want. But if you want to grow, and learn, and change, then that’s what you’ll have to focus.

What does fear of success look like in real life? We’ve talked a little bit about how it feels. We’ve talked a little bit about why it’s something that we can face, but what does this look like? How does it show up in our own realities? I’m going to list a few things here, a few symptoms of fear of success, and I’d like to know if you identify with any of these statements. By statements I mean questions. Fear of success is asking, “What if I actually pull this off? What if I actually publish this book? What if I actually make money from my writing? What if I actually take this to the next level? Who will I become? Will I like the person I become? What will be expected of me next? Once I level up, oh my gosh, will people expect me to go to another level and keep leveling up? Will I pass a point of no return? Will people call me a sellout? What will other people think of me when I reach this level of success? Will I be rejected? Will my friends and family look at me and think, ‘Oh, they’re too good for us’? Do I deserve success? Am I worthy of success?”

When we ask these questions, we come to a crossroads, and consciously or unconsciously we make a decision that determines where we will go. When we’re getting to the point, say you’re finishing a novel and you finish that novel, what happens next? What if I send it out? What if it gets published? What if I actually pull this off? What will people think of me? What will my life look like? How much change will I have to face? Will people suddenly think that I’m a different person? What will that mean for my relationships? Will people call me a sellout? Do I even deserve this? Am I worthy of having a book published? These are all questions that we ask when success is within reach. We have a choice. Again, the crossroads is do we move forward or do we stay where we’re comfortable?

It sounds like a really easy question to answer, like obviously, duh, take a step forward into success, but it’s so much harder than that, because a lot of the time fear is insidious. A lot of the time we subconsciously make a decision that keeps us comfortable, that keeps us mediocre, that keeps us small, because we don’t realize that what we’re facing is a fear of success. We make the choice to stay safe, instead of growing and stepping out onto a ledge that may or may not support us. What we do is we sabotage ourselves, usually unconsciously. We don’t know we’re doing it. We don’t say, “Yes. Hello. Today, I would like to sabotage myself.” We don’t do that. Instead, we hedge our bets, or we talk ourselves out of something, or we start to second guess. Is this really right?

Even if we’re not asking those questions, maybe you’ve noticed that you do this. Maybe you break your writing streak, you sabotage yourself by breaking your writing streak, or maybe you sabotage yourself by, I’m not going to send this out, because of a really good reason I just thought of. Maybe we miss a deadline. Maybe we miss an important phone call. Again, this isn’t always a conscious decision we make. Maybe we slip into depression. Maybe we make a really good excuse. What we do when we give into this fear of success is we keep ourselves playing small. We keep ourselves within our comfortable limitations. We keep ourselves safe from risk, from potential discomfort, from change. But if you want to get to the place where you want to be as a writer, it’s going to take risk. It’s going to take hard decisions. It’s going to take uncertainty, and it is definitely going to take change.

If you’ve ever read The Big Leap, by Gay Hendricks, he talks about this wonderful phenomenon of our inner thermostat. We have a thermostat of comfort, and we’ve set it at a certain temperature. Here’s where I’m comfortable. When we find ourselves reaching past that thermostat, we will often unconsciously sabotage ourselves back into our comfort zone and out of a place of growth, out of a place of genius. It’s an excellent book, and it really opened my eyes to a lot of the ways that I was keeping myself playing small and I was holding myself back. I definitely recommend reading that. I’ll have a link to it in the show notes for today’s episode. It’s a little self-helpy, so if that’s not your thing, then it might not be for you. But if you’re willing to put up with a little bit of cheesiness, then I think it’s a really meaningful read. But if you’ve identified at all with these questions that I’ve been asking pertaining to fear of success, then I have some homework for you. Doesn’t that sound fun? Homework.

I hated homework until I became an adult, and now I love it, because homework is my vehicle for change. Working on myself has been the most rewarding work that I’ve ever done. Your homework, should you choose to accept it, is to ask yourself, are you investing in a version of success that you believe in? Have you been here told your entire life that you want to buy those $65,000 pair of shoes? Is that success that you believe in? Have you been told that success is getting a medical degree and becoming a doctor? Is that really success for you, success that feels fulfilling? Is your definition of success something that comes from your heart, or is it something you have been prescribed and told that you wanted? Are you getting measured for an article of clothing that you will never wear? What kind of success do you actually want? What sounds fulfilling? What sounds like it feels good to you?

I want you to start there, because if the success that you’re moving toward is something that you want with your whole heart, then it will be much easier to work through the fear of change, and risk, and uncertainty that comes with that certain type of success. I want to say one final time that success is relative, so no two people’s version of success will look exactly the same. For some writers they want to appear on Good Morning America. They want to sell a massive, awesome screenplay for millions of dollars. They want to eat caviar with gold leaf on the top for dinner every night. For other people, they want to publish a book, and they want to see that book on a shelf, and that’s what will be fulfilling for them. There are so many different types of success that you can face as a writer. I want you to understand deep in your heart what that success looks like and feels like for you, because once you know what that is, you can begin working toward it and making it a reality.

As you know by now, I do not make the Write Now Podcast alone. I have help from my amazing Patreon patrons. These are people who give a certain amount of money, so $1 dollar per episode, $2 per episode, $10 per episode, what have you, so that I can provide this content to all of the writers who need it. They help cover hosting costs. They help cover the cost of production of the show. They are fantastic, and I love them, so special thanks today go out to Amanda King, Amanda L. Dickson, Julien Vincent Thornburgh, Laurie, Leslie Manson, Michael Beckwith, Regina Calabrese, Sean Locke, Susan Geiger, Tiffany Joyner, Leslie Duncan, Maria Alejandro, Rebecca Werner, and Sara Lauzon. Thank you all so much, from the depths of my heart, for your incredible and generous support. I truly appreciate it. If you would like to join their amazing ranks and become a patron, that is very easy to do. You can simply go out to patreon.com, that’s P-A-T-R-E-O-N, .com/SarahRheaWerner, that’s /S-A-R-A-H-R-H-E-A-W-E-R-N-E-R, and select the tier you’d like, and make your pledge.

You can alternately go out to my website, SarahWerner.com. That’s S-A-R-A-H-W-E-R-N-E-R.com. Navigate to the show notes for today’s episode, episode number 83, and just click on the link that says support the show, and it will take you over to Patreon, and you can do it that way. If you are not in a place where financial assistance is a possibility, that is perfectly fine. You can support the show just by telling another writer about it. It’s really helpful. I get all of my most amazing listeners through word of mouth. Just tell someone about the show, let them know it exists, and that it is here for them to give them support in their writing journey.

Fear of success is real, and it is something that I think every writer will deal with to some extent during their writing journey or their writing career. I would be interested to know, is this something that you’ve noticed that you have dealt with before? I would love to hear your thoughts and your experiences. If you want to share those with me and with the other listeners to this podcast, please go out to SarahWerner.com and navigate to the show notes for this episode. If you scroll down to the bottom of the post, you’ll see a place for your comments. I would just love to start a discussion there with you about your own experience with fear of success. I’m really interested to hear your own thoughts and your experience there. I’m looking forward to seeing your responses.

One quick note. I’m trying to think of all the things I need to tell you. I’ve said this in the past couple of episodes, but I am working hard to make the Write Now Podcast more accessible to everyone. I am now providing full transcripts, word by word, of every single episode of the Write Now Podcast. I’m working from episode one and forward, and I’m also working from new episodes backwards. Eventually they’ll meet in the middle and I will have full transcripts for every single episode. Thank you for your patience as I make this possible. This is a good thing, and it means a lot for me to be able to provide writing assistance to all people. 

With that, this has been episode 83 of the Write Now Podcast, the podcast that helps all writers to find the time, energy, and courage you need to pursue your passion and write. I’m Sarah Werner, and I cannot wait for you to find your own version of success.