Soul Food with Pia Richardson: Why we stop ourselves because fear of failure, or fear of success

Do you suffer from fear of failure? Have you ever considered that it may in fact be fear of success? Either way you look at it, it is keeping you from living your best life and it is high time you let it go. There is nothing worse than being stuck in a holding pattern, letting real or imagined fears keep you from going out and living your life. Every day is a risk. From the minute we open our eyes we are navigating a veritable minefield of potential risk but we still go about our day to day lives with little to no thought of the consequences of those seemingly insignificant actions we take, so why do we let fear take the reins in other areas? You see it is my belief that there is no such thing as failure — only opportunities to learn. I’m a big believer in failing forward and I’m quite certain that over the years I’ve failed more times than I’ve succeeded. But it’s those failures that have gotten me where I am today and they play a bigger role than you might realise. You see, every time something doesn’t quite work out, it takes you closer to what does work. Every experience that we don’t want only serves to educate us on what we do want, and often we are better off trying 10 new things and failing at nine than to stay stuck in the same old loop, complaining about all the things that are missing from our lives. As for fear of success, that is a little harder to spot. It comes disguised as caution or apathy or feeling like you’ve reached your peak — when in fact you simply won’t allow yourself to want more because what if. . . what if you succeed and it’s not what you thought it would be? What if you succeed and people judge you? What if you succeed and you suddenly realise all the other areas in your life where you are playing small and are confronted with big, scary change? That’s the hard part. Success comes with responsibility, it comes with a level of visibility that Australian culture has spent many years branding as wrong. We are notorious for the way we perpetuate tall poppy syndrome and in regional communities it is even worse. Success makes demands of us that we often aren’t sure we are ready to shoulder. So next time you feel stuck, ask yourself why. If you think it’s fear of failure, write a list of everything that could go wrong and proceed to find evidence of all the times that things have worked out — or all the reasons why those things really actually don’t — not now and not in a 100 years, matter. If you think it’s a fear of success, take some time to explore why. What’s stopping you? And how can you take one small step towards your goals today? It might just be the step that launches the journey of a lifetime. Pia Richardson is the co-owner of Railway Health Hub, managing director of Crossroads Life and runs Soul Food Cafe

Soul Food with Pia Richardson: Why we stop ourselves because fear of failure, or fear of success

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