Are you crazy? What if you fail??!!”

“Why would you ever want to do that?  Are you crazy?  What if you fail??!!”  “What are you, a Satan worshiper?!”

By Brett M. Judd

When I was growing up there were really three options for future careers in the small town where I still live, the fertilizer and phosphate plants west of town, the railroad, or the university.   Steady regular blue collar safety of union protection or the liberal minded academic oddity that is the university.  Anyone who ever really wanted to “succeed” got out of town, and quick.  Those few who stayed behind and were successful at making their own way outside of the safety and security of the union or the state were often talked about in the back corners as being crooks, cheats, the oddity, or worse. I actually endured a conversation where it was touted, “the only reason that “Mr. Gold Digger” has the cash he has is because he is a Satan worshiper.”  REALLY??  The only way that this man could ever be successful is to have joined the ranks of Satan.  The story was so fantastic that he was supposedly having sacrifice ceremonies every Saturday night and then serving as a leader to a local Christian congregation the next day. The constant reminder to me growing up was “get a good job where there is a regular check every two weeks, annual vacation time, and a retirement system that will let you quit at 55 and play the rest of your life.”  Beyond that was the underlying notion that “anyone who attempts success doing the thing that they love and are good at, that is not under the umbrella of one of the ‘safe’ employment options must be greedy, selfish, foolish, and wicked.”  WOW.  And all this time I was getting told “achieve, be what you want, succeed”, quite the contradiction.

So here I am many years later and I just cut free the shackles of nearly 20 years of being reliant on an organization or agency to provide the safety net for me.  Yeah, I did it.  I settled for the safety of a state job for the last 16 years.  Is it scary to be free and on my own?  ABSOLUTLEY!!  But more than that it’s rewarding. This is what I have wanted for years, but was too afraid to step out of the social mold cast by my surroundings.  I thought that I was just too afraid to try, too afraid to be independent, too afraid that I would have to start raiding chicken coops on Saturday night to offer my weekly homage for a week’s success.    

TOO AFRAID TO SUCCEED!
 As we embark into the beginning of our 5^th year in business, having let go of the safety of the university, I have come to realize that the question wasn’t “am I too afraid to fail?”  No the question was “am I too afraid of success?”  HOW CRAZY IS THAT?  Am I too afraid to succeed? Who is afraid of success?  The answer is MOST of us.  Yes, that’s right.  Most of us are too afraid to succeed.  Too afraid of the responsibility, the work, and maybe even too afraid of the social outcry – “Who do they think they are? They must think they are better than us.” Or worse, “did they sell out to an unearthly power for that success?”

“I’m afraid I’ll lose my independence”
I had a conversation a few years ago with a self employed person who was always struggling to meet financial demands and the stresses of retirement savings.  What he told me was that he were afraid to be more successful because of the time it would take away from his freedom to do the things they enjoyed doing.  “REALLY!?” I said in my head.  “You are complacent to stress, worry, and fear the future and lack of money, but you do not want to reach a bit higher and earn more now at the expense of some free time?”  The fear of losing independence now was apparently far greater a risk than losing any self sufficiency in later years.

“I’m afraid of the responsibility”

Whether it is the responsibility to provide your own retirement, your own health care, or whatever it is, many are trapped into a life that is not fulfilling because they are too afraid of the responsibility it will require for self sufficiency.  Often this fear of responsibility is also covering the fear that “I am now the one that has to perform in order for success to happen.”  And “I am too afraid of the responsibility to maintain this success.  What if it crumbles?  Then what will they say?”

“What will THEY say?” 

The best response to that is who cares what they say. THEY  live only in our head.  Most often it is “what will I say to myself, about myself, if I do not achieve success or lose it once there?”  Our only real accountability is to ourselves, and at the end of the day can we honestly say that we gave it a one hundred percent effort?  That we did ALL we could with what we had to succeed.  Even if that success is in the comfort of a union or state job with the trappings of benefits, vacation, and retirement, did you succeed to the fullest potential and are you striving for more?

The main reason I started this topic for the first of the year, and created the Success Coaching opportunity (see it here) is that when we have decided to be more than we have been, it is critical to surround ourselves with like minded and supportive people.  That is why AA/NA, Weight Watchers, and myriad other support groups have lasted for so long.  Who do you hang around?  What is there attitude?  What do they think about anyone who aspires for more?  The water cooler conversation has more impact on our belief about our ability and whether or not it is okay to succeed than nearly anything else.  Incorporating coaching, support groups, and changing our social network may be the very thing that we need to finally reach our fullest potential.  Truth is, that is why I had to leave the comfort of the University.  While they talked about research and writing they did not value the writing and teaching that I want to do, or the message I have to give.  Journals and “scholarly” books do not change lives.  In order for me to have the freedom to make do the work I feel I need to do, I had to change my surroundings.  Maybe the one thing that is keeping you from achieving the greatest success in your life is where you have chosen to settle in.

As we head into a new year and new opportunities, I hope that we will all adopt an attitude of “It is okay to fail as long as I fail trying my hardest, and I get up again to succeed the next time.”  Set your sights and goals high and stretch to reach for them.  Do not let yourself settle for the easy to reach middle rung.  No one gains from mediocrity.  You are great! and may the New Year bring greatness through your losing any fear of success.