After reading the speech written by Marianne Williamson I realized that most of us are very afraid to change something in our lives because we actually could succeed in altering something. We all have the need to be successful in different fields such as family, social life, career and to develop and grow spiritually. Well known psychologist Abraham Maslow talked about these needs in his hierarchy of needs. However people are successful as much as they allow themselves to be. There is something called self-perception and if we see ourselves as persistent and person that is eager for changes we will not be afraid to try and make a change and the other way around. According to Karen Horney, famous German psychoanalyst fear from success is strong and mostly unconscious. If we do not analyze this fear we will make it even stronger. On a conscious level person may thrive to reach the goal, but his or her avoidance behavior serves to preserve positive picture about him or herself. This is at the same time a justification that the person would succeed if he or she tried. Similar thing happens to me when I need to study and want to study but delay it and later say if I studied I would have passed the test. It makes it easier to believe that I didn’t invest enough effort than to question my abilities.
The need to be socially accepted often results with fear from success, especially in teenagers. We can often see talented kids who are victims of bulling so they hide their potential and sabotage themselves believing that the peers will love them more if they don’t expose. Eric Bern, the founder of transactional analysis, explained this behavior with restraints that a person imposes to herself, but that are not realistic. They are actually messages such as “I want people to love me and I will have that if I fail to succeed” or similar.
I often ask myself what will happen if I succeed in something and imagine that success and everything else that goes with it, which is not always pleasant. By doing this I realized that the real reasons for fear are often hidden and it takes time to reveal them and cope with them. I am still in the search for deep causes of my anxiety and believe that this process will last for a long time, but I will not give up.
References
Maslow, Abraham H, Motivation and Personality, 2nd. ed., New York, Harper & Row, 1970.
Paris, Bernard J. Karen Horney: a Psychoanalyst's Search for Self-understanding, Yale University Press, New Haven, 1994.
Steiner, C. Scripts people live. New York: Grove Press, 1974.
