Thread: Fear of Success

Fear can influence you behavior; especially when it comes to success in network marketing. Most of the fear is manifested in the issues of your self-esteem.

A fear of failure can result in procrastination and inaction which equates to how successful one can be professionally and personally.

Fear of failure is the strongest fear that plaques us. This fear keeps us from improving our lives, accomplishing our dreams, and rising above mediocrity. It stops us from experimenting, taking risks, making choices, changing for the better, exploring new avenues, and even making new friends.

The way to combat fear is to change our self talk and replace negative thoughts with positive thoughts. A person can even change the amount of time they are around negative people. Replace them with positive friends and family members. Sometimes, these people just feed your self doubt and fear.

Instead, focus on success, positive self talk and taking action. Make positive outcomes a goal and try keeping a written record of your accomplishments.

I agree, and shamefully I must say that I have wandering thoughts of this maybe being a factor in my non-big-time-success.

Awesome. Thanks for sharing this post, it really helps. :1951:

I doubt fear prevents you from doing things, laziness is more of a reason from preventing you from succeeding

Fear prevent people from doing many things. When I first started my business, when customers started calling me, I would not answer the phone calls or return the phone calls. The reason was I was scared to talk to people. Also, putting out fliers. When I first started putting out fliers, I would sit in my car for a while until I got the nerve to go and put out my fliers.

I am a lot better now. Fear does not prevent me from doing much of anything. Fear is just one more thing I overcome and move on from.

Originally Posted by work2bfree

Fear prevent people from doing many things. When I first started my business, when customers started calling me, I would not answer the phone calls or return the phone calls. The reason was I was scared to talk to people. Also, putting out fliers. When I first started putting out fliers, I would sit in my car for a while until I got the nerve to go and put out my fliers.

I am a lot better now. Fear does not prevent me from doing much of anything. Fear is just one more thing I overcome and move on from.

That sounds a lot like me, did you fully overcome that? It's really a struggle feeling that way, I know it all too well.

Hi Kalina,
I still do wrestle with my emotions before I make a phone call and before I put out fliers, but what has changed is that my fear does not paralyze me anymore.

One other change is that when I get on the phone and talk to people whom I have never met, my voice does not quiver anymore. I speak clearly and I am not experiencing people hanging up on me.

While talking to people on or off the phone, I portray someone with confidence and I guess that is the key change, my confidence level is much improved.

Thank you for sharing this very wonderful message. I agree with you. Many of us tends to look at the negative side instead of thinking about success. I am once a negative person. I am trying my best to be as positive as I can be. I read motivational books by John Maxwell. I also listen to his audiobooks. It help me a lot to change my negative outlook to a positive one.

I remember once reading a book entitled 'Fear - The Friend Of Exceptional People' it was actually quite a good book but more along the lines of self defence.

Here is one thing I recently learned from listening to a tape by Dr. Wayne Dyer, called "The Power of Intentions."

"Change the way you look at things and the things you look at change".

I am sure it will take a while to do this on a daily basis, but practice makes perfect.

This would have to be one of the best topics that I have read on here, my downfall is my age, and how others see me because of it.

Its a great writeup

Originally Posted by work2bfree

I would not answer the phone calls or return the phone calls. The reason was I was scared to talk to people.

This sounds a lot more like social anxiety disorder than fear (well, fear being a side-effect of social anxiety disorder). I'm by no means a psychiatrist but if you want to look up social anxiety disorder you may be surprised at the list of symptoms

Originally Posted by Rhiannon

my downfall is my age, and how others see me because of it.

Your age is only a downfall if you let it be a downfall. I've been programming since I was about 7 years old and I actually wrote and sold a program for OfficeMax when I was 12, although I didn't make money off of it like I should have realistically given what the program did, I was still very happy to sell anything I had made.

I've never let my age be a problem, if it's a problem for a potential client of mine then that is THEIR problem. They are the ones missing out on a great service or product due to their closed mind.

That is how I see things.

Actually Mike, I looked up the "social anxiety disorder" and this is what is said:
"social anxiety disorder (social phobia)? Social anxiety disorder, also called social phobia, is defined as an overwhelming and disabling fear of scrutiny, embarrassment, or humiliation in everyday social situations which leads to avoidance of potentially pleasurable and meaningful activities. Most people experience some shyness or nervousness in certain social or work situations, but for someone with social anxiety disorder, the anxiety is so extreme that it can become debilitating."

I don't think we can apply this to what one has to do in order to develop a business. I say this because many people do not have the skills in owning a business. For most people, owning a business is new. Often times we have to learn new skills by doing things that we have never done before; such as cold calling or talking to strangers. I know I had many of these fears in the beginning. I still get a little nervous at times, but I don't let my feeling prevent me from moving forward. In other words, I don't let my fears paralyze me and you should not either.

This also has nothing to do with laziness. My family is always asking me do I have sit down because I am also in action, go, go, go, from the time I am up till it is time to go to bed at night. The next day, I start all over again. I am sure others are not lazy either. I think people are just unsure of themselves early on in their business and I don't blame them. You don't learn about running a business of your own until you actually start a business and this can be a pretty scary thing for most people.

Be cautious however in sometimes "conquering" your fear you can become overconfident and try deals which you think work great and fail at it . There is a thin line here I admit .

I have no fear of being over confident. I fear never getting enough confidence to do the things I need to do.

Plus, I am not known to be over confident on anything. I am just too introverted and shy to be that way. I have gotten good at concealing my shyness. Many people tell me they can't tell. I always respond by telling them the following.

"You know that little mouse in the cage that is constantly running on the wheel in his or her cage? That is me on the inside." I am very shy, I just try not to show it. Instead, I tend to show the confident me because this is what a leader should display, confidence.

The fear of success bases on lack of confidence what to do with this success! I can say that I have the fear of big money which is of the same nature - I just don't know what to do with it!