When
I was working on my first book, Knowing God's
Will, I labored under the typical
apprehensions of a writer--that I might never
finish the project, or fail to find a suitable
publisher if I did. But while the fear of failing
was very real, I was also troubled at times with
thoughts of what might happen if I did succeed.
Writing a book means casting something of your
private life and thought before the public, and
that can be scary. Would friends who liked me in
my present role still like me in my new one? And
did God himself really want me to succeed?
Perhaps I didn't deserve to have a published
book. Perhaps he would punish me for seeking this
sort of accomplishment.
Increasingly, I've come to
realize that the uneasiness which I felt wasn't
unusual, nor just the fate of those who write,
but the experience of many in every area of
pursuit. Psychologists have shown considerable
interest in this area of conflict during the last
several decades, which they've dubbed "the
fear of success." As specialists in the
field never tire in pointing out, the fear of
success is not the same as the fear of failure,
not just a misstatement of the latter. The fear
of failure is the apprehension that you'll never
reach a goal. The fear of success is that you will
reach it but suffer disaster as a result. While
the two fears are related in many obvious ways,
they are distinct.
Specialists point out too, with
very good basis, that while some are paralyzed
with the fear of success, everyone suffers from
it to at least some degree. The fear is often
unconscious, coming out in dreams and otherwise
inexplicable acts of self-sabotage. As an extreme
example, I know a woman who bailed out of a
four-year college program only two weeks before
graduation. Although her grades were fine and
only a few assignments remained to earn the
degree, she complained that she had lost interest
and didn't see any purpose in finishing. This was
clearly the fear of success at work.
A Special Problem for
Christians
I'm certain, too, that we as
Christians are more prone to this fear than most
people. Christian teaching often fails to balance
biblical perspectives on the desires of the flesh
and self-denial with the positive role of
motivation and accomplishment in the Christian
life. The result is a myriad of success-phobics
among modern Christians. Many Christians are
convinced that God doesn't wish them to enjoy
significant success. There seems to be more
nobility and humility in failure--and much less
hazard to your relationship with Christ!
Scripture does have plenty to say
about the danger of success becoming an idol. Yet
it speaks just as often about the positive side
of success and the importance of using our gifts
constructively for God's glory. "Whatever he
does prospers," the first psalm declares of
the godly person (v. 3). God has ordained each of
our lives to certain accomplishment. Yet the fear
of success can hold us back from God's best as
greatly as any other inhibition or sin.
Peter's Example
We find an enlightening example
of the fear of success in one of the early
encounters that Peter and his friends had with
Jesus, described in Luke 5:1-11. They had fished
all night but caught nothing. Jesus tells them to
drop their nets once again, and this time their
catch is so great that they can scarcely haul it
ashore. Peter then declares to Jesus,
"Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O
Lord" (v. 8).
We would have expected Peter and
his friends to be elated over their unexpected
triumph. They would surely want Jesus to give
them this success again and again.
Instead, they were taken
drastically off guard by this sudden,
inexplicable achievement. Having grown accustomed
to failure, success was a jolt to their comfort
zone. They felt morbidly unworthy of it. They
surely feared that as Jesus came to know them
better, he would judge them fraudulent and use
this same miraculous power to destroy them.
Jesus, in magnanimous compassion
and grace, ignored Peter's self-defeating request
(thank God he so often ignores our misguided
prayers!). He assured Peter and his friends that
he intended more success for them, and on
a more meaningful level. "Don't be afraid;
from now on you will catch men," Jesus
declared (v. 10). His response clearly calmed the
disciples' fears. They were so relieved to find
he had positive intentions for them that
"they pulled their boats up on shore, left
everything and followed him" (v. 11).
Though I've never heard it
expressed this way, I'm certain that one of
Jesus' greatest miracles of healing was giving
his early followers victory over their fears of
success. He inspired within them the spiritual
and psychological strength to bound beyond the
inertia of their routine existences into the
dynamic life of following him. In Peter the
change was nothing short of revolutionary. On the
day of Pentecost this man who had been plagued
with inferiority stood up and forcefully
addressed the multitude, convincing many to
repent and follow Christ. Later, even the Jewish
authorities were astonished "when they saw
the courage of Peter and John and realized that
they were unschooled, ordinary men" (Acts
4:13).
If you're fearful of success,
take heart. You're not alone. This is a common
area of struggle for many. Take heart, too, that
Christ understands your struggle. As surely as he
has saved you, he can give you grace to overcome
this fear and realize your full potential for
him.
Characteristics of the Fear of
Success
Let's look more closely as what
the fear of success involves. There are certain
common apprehensions which many experience in
anticipation of reaching a goal.
 The
fear of punishment from God. Some fear
that God won't be pleased if they succeed in
reaching a long-cherished goal. He knows they
aren't worthy of this success. It will mean
experiencing more pleasure and happiness than
they're entitled to in this life. Reaching the
goal will make them more competitive with God,
more like God. He won't like it. He will punish
them.
The
fear of losing the affection of others. Another
common fear is that others will love you less if
you reach your goal. This concern often
originates in childhood. If, for instance, your
parents constantly criticized you and belittled
your chances of succeeding at anything, you may
feel uncomfortable now with defying their
negative expectations. Your success would be a
blow to their esteem, a snub at their judgment.
You worry about the effect of wounding their
pride--would they think less of you or withdraw
their affection?
The
fear of increased responsibility. Many
worry also about success bringing greater
responsibility into their life. Of course, this
fear isn't without justification. Success usually
does bring additional responsibility, and some
concern about not being taxed beyond our limits
is healthy. Yet we can also carry an unreasonable
fear of not being up to bearing responsibility
which Christ will enable us to assume.
On another level, we can dread
the increased sense of significance that will
come with our achievement and the new
responsibilities involved. We may fear that we're
not up to handling it emotionally. Change in our
self-concept is always unnerving--even positive
change. We may feel squeamish or embarrassed
about taking on responsibility which to us
signals a boost in status.
The
fear of insignificance. At the same time
we can be hampered by a rather different
concern--that what we accomplish may be of no
ultimate significance to human life anyway. Why
bother to make the effort? So what if I slave to
put myself through college and pull top grades as
an economics major? So what if I land a good
position with a corporation? What will I achieve
that someone else couldn't accomplish just as
well?
What difference will it make if
we have a second child? Billions of children have
come into existence and died throughout history
without making any impact on the world.
We are complex psychological
creatures and often experience conflicting fears
at the same time. One moment the thought of
completing a goal unsettles us because we fear it
will elevate us to more importance than we
deserve. The next moment we're sapped by the
thought that even if we succeed, our achievement
won't dent the world's problems.
Perspectives for Overcoming
The Fear of Success
Since the anticipation of success
can fill us with fears of both significance and
insignificance, we need to learn to hold onto two
perspectives at once. On the one hand, we should
remind ourselves that Christ has a distinctive
plan for our life. He has given us a combination
of gifts and opportunities as unique from anyone
else's as our fingerprints. The work we do may
seem futile in a purely objective sense. Yes, we
may take a job which could easily be filled by
someone else. Still, our personality and mix of
gifts will allow us to relate to certain people
for Christ within our work in ways no one else is
as well-equipped to do. And in the mystery of
God's providence we'll be there at just the right
moment to meet certain needs of people which
otherwise would go unheeded.
But a sense of futility can keep
us from taking the steps so critical to keeping
pace with his will. We must remind ourselves
constantly that God's plan for us is personally
designed so that the work we accomplish will
contribute significantly to what Christ is doing
to meet people's needs. God intends our life as a
matchless gift to people. Others will be deprived
of important benefits if we fail to act.
At the same time we should remind
ourselves that ultimately our work is only one
small part of the picture of all that God is
doing. We'll make plenty of mistakes, and the
world won't expire as a result! Ultimately the
work is God's, anyway, and we're forever in
danger of taking ourselves too seriously.
In her book Overcoming the Fear of
Success, psychiatrist Martha
Friedman shares her own experience with the
problem as a doctoral candidate and how she
solved it:
"I was on the verge of
becoming a Ph.D. dropout when a wise psychologist
said to me, 'Why such a fuss? Nobody's going to
read it anyway; it'll just gather dust on some
college library shelf, and it'll certainly never
be published. If you're meant to do important
work, you'll do it after you get out of school.'
"I stopped obsessing, took a
month off from my jobs, and finished my
dissertation. While it's admittedly no major
contribution to world science, it was a major
contribution to my psyche. I had finished
something important to me. It
was . . . a matter of not magnifying what I was
trying to accomplish."
She adds, "Minimizing the
importance of a goal is an excellent way to reach
that goal."*
We each need to work at achieving
a healthy balance in the way we look at our work.
We need to know that what we do is significant;
yet we're always in danger of taking ourselves
too seriously in the midst of it all. In Christ
we can achieve this balance, for we can know that
while our work is important in his mission to
earth, he doesn't ultimately depend upon
us but graciously uses our availability. With
this in mind, we can serve in a spirit of joyous
victory, not defeat.
But What Will Others Think?
In developing a healthy outlook
on success, we also need to come to terms with
our concern about how others will react to our
success. The perception that others don't want us
to succeed sometimes has basis. People don't
always like it when we change. They may withdraw
their affection. But we should remember that God
has made human nature remarkably resilient. We
can bear the disappointment of lost affection if
something positive takes its place. It can be a
worthwhile tradeoff to let go of some affirmation
in order to experience the joy of using our gifts
more fully. And as we take steps of growth we
best position ourselves to develop new
friendships. In the long run we're happier in
relationships with those who desire God's best
for us than with those who insist we conform to
their still-life pictures.
Practical Steps
There are also some important
practical steps we can take to manage our
anxieties about success.
1. The role of prayer.
We should never forget the value of our
quiet-time as a place where our fears can be
confronted and overcome. It's greatly beneficial
to take generous time for meditation--both to
dwell on God's grace and provision for our life,
and to stare our fears in the face and recognize
them for the irrational apprehensions they so
often are. We should remind ourselves that God
has put us on earth for the sake of certain
accomplishment; we're not fighting him by moving
toward our goals, but cooperating with him, if
indeed these are ones which he wants us to
pursue.
This brings us back to the
importance of establishing our priorities and
daily schedule during our devotional time, the
point we stressed in session three. When I've
resolved in prayer that I should spend my time in
a certain way during the day, I'm able to go
forth with the confidence that I'm responding to
God's leading and not just my own impulse. The
conviction of God's call, more than any factor,
strengthens our motivation and quells our fears
of both failure and success.
2. Help from our friends.
God's healing from our fears so often comes, in
part, through the encouragement of friends,
counselors, and those in our support groups. What
makes the fear of success so difficult for many
is the mistaken perception that they alone suffer
from it. It's wonderfully therapeutic to find
just how universal the problem actually is. Seek
relationships and, if possible, a support group,
where you can be straightforward in sharing your
apprehensions of success. You'll probably be
amazed to find that others have the same
concerns. Pray for each other and encourage each
other as you move forward. The renewed confidence
that comes from this sort of interaction can be
remarkable.
If your fears of success have
their roots in childhood trauma, I would
encourage you also to seek the help of a trained
counselor. Take advantage of all the help you can
get and, especially, of the best help
available.
3. Manage the benefits of
success. Martha Friedman recommends that
those who experience success shouldn't try to
appropriate its benefits all at once. It takes
time for our psyche to adapt to change, even when
it is most welcome. We need to be realistic about
our own adjustment process and not make sudden
drastic changes in our standard of living merely
because our financial condition now allows it.
The one who receives a large salary increase may
be happier resisting the urge to immediately buy
a new home but making some improvements in his
present one instead.
As Christians we're well-schooled
in the importance of not piling up riches on
earth but using our material benefits to help
those in need. Friedman's point adds a further
incentive for keeping our lifestyle within
reasonable bounds. Doing so not only makes good
sense in light of our responsibility to the world
but psychologically. Not that it's wrong
for Christians to enjoy the benefits of success.
Scripture extols the value of rejoicing in our
achievements and enjoying the results of our
work. The point is simply that balance is
needed. We should remember, too, that God has
created us to find our greatest joy not in
hoarding resources but in sharing them.
4. Keep the wheels in
motion. Someone once asked Albert
Einstein how he was able to cope with his
remarkable notoriety. He replied that he dealt
with it by continuing to work and pursue new
goals. He didn't dwell on his success but kept
his mind actively involved in new pursuits.
The motivation of Christ is
experienced most fully when our lives are in
motion--not frantic, obsessive motion, but
prudent, natural motion toward goals which we've
prayerfully resolved Christ wants us to pursue.
It's through this movement that our fears are
transcended and we find the courage to become the
person Christ has created us to be. And it's
within this movement that we discover most
completely and convincingly the truth of the
biblical promise that in His joy is our strength
(Nehemiah 8:10).
Give your attention to using the
gifts Christ has given you, and to moving toward
the goals he helps you to establish. Keeping your
life in motion will help greatly to allow the
Lord to move you beyond your fears of success,
and into those accomplishments that reflect his
best for your life.
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