Success broadly defined is achieving our most cherished goals, in the process getting the best out of ourselves. Clearly the conscious mind has one take on success: it’s grand and glorious, the fulfillment of our deepest desires.
The DI lens gives us a new “success lens.” Here the fear of success (success reluctance or success phobia) comes into view. As we will see, the pressure to retreat from our best—before or after we get there—can greatly affect our individual goals and our national/societal goals since we all desire to be successful individuals and have a successful America.
Fear of Success Summary
The DI has given us a far richer look at hidden success fears. Our unconscious “blink mind” links five major fears with success which cause people to unknowingly retreat from success—either on the verge of success or after attaining it. The first four powerful emotions: guilt (I didn’t deserve it); fear of our aggression (determination invariably mobilizes our killer instinct); fear of aggression of others including envy (I wish I had the success not you); separation (indeed it’s lonely at the top—people can reject winners). These powerful emotions together produce a deep-seated success equation: “if I succeed I will be destroyed.” To the “blink mind” success is like looking down the barrel of a gun. All the while the conscious mind remains oblivious to the powerful success story taking place in the deeper mind. Bette Midler’s famous quote highlights this secret story on success, “The hardest thing about having success in Hollywood is finding someone else to enjoy it with you.”
Please visit my additional Web sites. First we will look at America’s struggle with success which focuses specifically on politics and leadership at the present time (americasstrugglewithsuccess.com).
Think about it. If we’ve got a brand new way of gaining more knowledge about ourselves and don’t take advantage of it, we indeed have a success problem—in failing to use our best intelligence on a given matter.