I'm Afraid of Success, But I Desperately Want It
“A little fear now and then will keep you on your toes and remind you that what you’re pursuing is important enough for you to fear achieving it…
because, if you can achieve it, that means you can lose it.”
Remind me to take these thoughts to a therapist. Also, remind me to email back the three therapists I reached out to when I moved back to New Orleans last January.
Anyone else out there afraid of success but want it so badly, you lay awake at night staring at the ceiling and tossing and turning because your brain won’t stop fantasizing about everything you desperately want to achieve? And just as your brain becomes tired and you think you’ll drift off to sleep, your stomach seizes from anxiety at the amount of responsibility and exposure that accompanies your hypothetical success?
*deep breath*
I’m not going to say, “Just me?” Because it isn’t just me. It’s everyone. We all desperately want things but are afraid to achieve them. It’s a phenomenon, and it’s wild, but I think I have an idea as to why it happens.
For some context (and for the sake of manifesting them into reality), my dreams are as follows:
To land a literary agent who will push me, encourage me, and vouch for me
To see my books published and sitting on shelves across the world
To be invited onto The Ellen Show as a guest. I even want to be pranked by her before the show, Taylor Swift wiping out in the bathroom-style
To land an acting agent who recognizes my potential and believes in me, and who will work as tirelessly for me as I will for them
To perform on a UCB stage again
To meet, and befriend, both Tina Fey and Amy Poehler, and work with them in a film or TV show (writing this one made me feel like I was having a heart attack)
To have my website take off and reach women around the world
To be a cast member or host of SNL
To perform stand-up before my 30th birthday (again, stomach-churning, beads of sweat forming, heart palpitating…)
To earn a living from acting and writing, and for it to be sufficient enough to pay all of my bills, save for an emergency, save for retirement, and give back to charitable causes
I could keep going, but these are my top ten, and every single one of them is terrifying, but I want them all more than I’ve wanted anything in my life. More than the dude of the week to like me back, more than wanting to ace a midterm, more than wanting WORLD PEACE.*
My motivation and momentum can get thrown off course pretty easily sometimes, which is both discouraging and also normal. Thoughts of inadequacy and imposter syndrome can creep in quicker than a mimosa-buzz at brunch, and the confidence I’ve worked so hard to build can become derailed in a moment’s notice. But something that I absolutely must work on, and perhaps you do too, is that I am deserving of success that comes my way.
I am deserving of the success that comes my way.
And so are you!
The reason why I sometimes stall in my progress is because of how I view my worth, experience, and capabilities. It manifests itself as anxiety, or a depressive episode, exhaustion, irritability, and the inability to sit down and focus. As a matter of fact, it has taken me five hours so far to draft this blog post, because I keep asking myself, “Do people even care about this?”
I got up from my kitchen table where I’m writing and I cooked, I talked on the phone, I sifted through social media, I scrolled through dating apps (god help us), went on a three-mile run, and chatted with my neighbor for a while. I basically did anything and everything to avoid writing this, because a part of my brain told me it was useless.
And that got me thinking about how all of us have parts of our brains that tell us we’re useless. And how that sucks terribly. Because we are the farthest from useless. We are actually pretty awesome.
And if there’s something we feel we’re called to do, it’s probably best to honor that feeling and go for it, even during moments of thinking we’re inferior, or not ready, or incapable. Especially during the moments of feeling inferior, or not ready, or incapable. Because, whether we realize it or not, people are watching. People are noticing what we’re doing, and they’re taking notes. Some might even be thinking, “I wish I could be like her and go after what I want.”
The beautiful thing is that you can.
And you should.
A little fear now and then will keep you on your toes and remind you that what you’re pursuing is important enough for you to fear achieving it, because, if you can achieve it, that means you can lose it.
And we can’t lose what we don’t have, and that stops far too many people from chasing what it is they want.
So, stay a little afraid, but also stay bold. Stay resilient and stay focused. Know that you are worthy of your success and know that you have a band of supporters in your corner cheering you on from afar. And I am one of them!
So, go.
Go after the life you want.
***
Q for you:
I shared my top 10 list with you, so share something with me! What is one thing you want to achieve? Share it with me in the comments!