7 Types of FEARS that drive success away.

Posted by Israelmore Ayivor on 28th August 2013.

Imagine you were walking alone on a bushy path and suddenly, all lights went off and you could hear some strange noises from the bush. You got to a place where you could hear footsteps sounding behind you but you look back and no one was following you. Immediately, thoughts start coming into your mind about stories you heard about “ghosts” and there you were, someone far in front of you was walking towards your direction, wearing black attire in the background of howling wind waves. Guess how your mood would be at that time.

Fear as defined by the Oxford Advance learner’s Dictionary, “is the bad feeling that you have when you are in danger, when something bad happens or when a particular thing frightens you”. This tells that “fear” in a general term is a bad attitude and could be exhibited before, during and after an adventure. Fear, simply is an emotion that tells you to avoid or escape from an ongoing or an impending situation. Fear could be from extrinsic sources, intrinsic sources and subconscious sources. However, this concept will unveil seven (7) major intrinsic fears that tend to drive our success away! These fears include;

 

1. The Fear of Starting:

Most people cannot start living their true dreams because of this fear and this means as long as that fear is not dealt with; they will remain dreamers but not dream workers. They express their fears in statements like; “I am not sure this will succeed”, “what if it couldn’t work?”, “my master will be angry”, “I am not yet qualified” etc. That is a real fear. In the parable of talents, Jesus Christ taught about how fear makes a person not to use his or her talents.

In that parable, all the people who were given talents made the best use of them except this man who confessed; “….I was afraid and went and hid your talent in the ground…” Matthew 25v25. Can you see the fear in this man? His feared to optimize the talents his master gave him because he was afraid of the circumstances he would find himself in if he could not make interests on his talents because his master was a “strict master”. This was truly “a false impression appearing real” in his mind.

 

2. The Fear of Failing:

Most people do not succeed in what they were really meant to do because of the fear of failing. When most people see someone failed in a venture before, it becomes their taboo to also attempt it. However, that should not be the priority. One must be convinced about what he or she wants to do before he or she sets out to begin. If you are convinced, you will not quit.

Success comes after action and every action is a risk. Risks may or may not mature to become success. When it happen that your first attempt failed, you should not use that as a criteria to throw your premature success away. Most global achievers had faced instances that some would give up to if they were those representing. Similarly, many tasks on the earth today have never come into celebration because the initiator met obstacles that they yielded to. It is better to try and fail than not to try at all. Never let the fear of failure stop you.

 

3. The Fear of shame:

This is the type of fear that makes it difficult for a person to begin a task or complete it. The person might be concentrating on the consequences of failing more than that of succeeding. Due to mockeries they will receive when they are not able to win, most people conclude that it is better not to try than to fail and be mocked. This thought is failure on its own because it kills the passion in you.

There are situations too where nobody is pursuing a dream in life and you beginning to be the only one thinking that far. It is likely for the others to consider you as a mad person because all that you do is not part of their culture. You may end up changing your association if you want to win, or give away your premature success because of the fear of shame. Shame is a product of low self-esteem, a bad attitude that would only make you to avoid taking up the challenge and dare!

 

4. Fear of causing harm to others:

This type of fear keeps plans under lock. A person may dream and make plans to execute those dreams, but obsessive thoughts about others may pin him to be static. Some of those thoughts would arise from the common culture of the people. Some people do believe that they must all be at equal levels and anyone who tries to progress must be brought low. However, they don’t make any attempt to make progress uniformly.

There are situations where you may be persuaded to become inactive because your success may bring harm to others. If you are too obsessed over how they should feel instead of how you should optimize your talents, you are not going to make it. It is not right you make yourself as equal sinner just because your righteousness will cause harm to the friends you are with. Don’t think of those who are not doing it; you must do it. Your assignment is different from another person’s own and hence, the negligence attitude of someone must not suppress your passion.

 

5. Fear of the unattempted:

You may have watched old people showing their regressions for the things they knew they should have done when they were young but could not do. Some of them express this when a child speaks to them about their passions. “I had also wished to be a pilot when I was young, but…”, are the formats of their words and their sentences usually end with justifications such as lack of money and support, most of which are lies. The major dream killer is the fear of starting to live your dreams.

When your dreams remain dreams or have graduated into clearly defined plans, but remain to sit on the paper for years till it becomes too late, those dreams will definitely die their unnatural deaths and then become “ghosts”. Because your fear was their killer, their first and last point of attack is you! They keep worrying your mind till you becomes angry at the situations that could not make you unleashed them. The easier way to conquer the fear cause by the undone things is to have them done before it becomes too late. Never leave your plan unattempted.

 

6. Fear of starting all over again:

This is the kind of fear that makes people presume that once their first attempts fail, all other attempts are potential failures. People who think like that always give up when they are close to their successes. They define their present failure as a justification for their unwillingness to start again. The ideas of starting again are feared because of the shame, blame and damn they will experience again when the failure should repeat itself.

It is not guaranteed that success emerges from the first attempts. The first attempt is likely a source of failure, but a person with passion is energized to try again and again till he succeeds at last. Passionate people find it difficult to give up. Why? This is because they have found something to die for!

 

7. Fear of the unknown:

This is the oldest kind of fear that cripples the successes that could have been keeping the entire world at the level of excellence by now. This kind of fear could see even if you close your eyes and keeps your body hot even if the weather is cold. This fear has its good side and that is to say, it keeps us out of trouble. However it is this same fear that can keep us away from our successes. Inasmuch as a child may fear the darkness because he does not know what may be hiding there and would be protected, so can a man waste his opportunity to invest into a business that produces more profits because he does not know what is in there for him.

Risk taking is a major component of successful action plans. But the fear of the unknown is a major threat to this component. If you always declare yourself a loser when you dream about creating a path which would lead to a place no one had been before, you will miss your success out. Take calculated risks and bear it in mind that “everything was impossible until the first person had it done”.

~~~~~~~

Fear keep us static because of one reason; “our ignorance”. The fact is that “fear” itself fears you, but you may not know. It’s like a sheep in the wolf’s cloth and it will take your ignorance for it to drive you away. Take a time to study the anatomy of your fear and you will realize that it is like a wall without foundations which a slight blow can demolish. Ignorance becomes the linguist that keeps whispering to let you know that you can’t move out of that wall because it is strong. Live life sooooo weel!!!.

Israelmore Ayivor is a young multi-talented author of the Books

1. Turning the Unturned (Top 10 leadership laws)
2. Believe and Achieve (10 Big Lessons in everyday life)
3. Michelangelo, Beethoven, Shakespeare (15 things common to great Achievers)
4.Dunamis, a dynamic power to cause change (series 1)
5. You must be who God said you must be- Series 1 (12 biblical exhortations)

Buy all books by Israelmore Ayivor by clicking here.

Connect Israelmore Ayivor on Facebook… Live life sooooo well!!!