Fear of Success

We all talk about the fear of failure all the time, but what about the fear of success?

In this milestone 10th episode (yay us!), I’m diving into a real-but-rarely-talked-about mindset block that affects so many creative women, entrepreneurs, coaches, and sensitive overthinkers: the fear of success.

It’s the subtle self-sabotage that shows up as procrastination, perfectionism, or endlessly tweaking your website instead of sending the one bold email. It’s the part of you that flinches when things start going well because you’re scared it’ll cost you your peace, your rest, or your freedom.

In this episode, we’ll talk about:

• The most common fear of success thought-patterns I see in coaching
• How to shift your beliefs so you stop holding back
• Why your business can grow without sacrificing your lifestyle
• What it means to define success on your terms
• And how to let yourself be both soft and powerful as you rise

Whether you’re a soulful entrepreneur, a creative visionary, or someone who just wants to stop playing small, this one’s full of real talk, deep mindset work, and a whole lot of heart.

 Plus: a little celebration for 10 episodes (!!!) and a reminder that letting your life get really, really good might just be the next brave thing.

Links and Resources:

Get My Free Soulful Scheduling Workbook:

https://www.tamarcoaching.com/

Book A Free Coaching Consult:

https://www.tamarcoaching.com/consult

Come hang with me on Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/tamarfieldgersh/?__pwa=1

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:12

Hey, hey, welcome back to the podcast. And by the way, not just any podcast. This, guys, is episode 10. 10! 10! We've been here together for 10 whole episodes. And that's kind of amazing. Like one day, I know I'll be sitting here saying, hey, welcome to episode 100. Or can you believe it? 200 episodes. But right now, we're in it. We're at the very beginning. And also, This is kind of a moment, guys, a little milestone, and I want to celebrate with you guys. So happy 10th episode to all of us. And if we're lucky, we'll be old and wise for many, many years to come and still sitting on this virtual porch together, just telling the truth and doing brave little things. So let's take a second to, and by the way, watch and learn, folks, what I'm about to do. Let it remind you to do the same thing for yourself. So let's take a second to celebrate me, because honestly, for sitting down and sharing what's on my heart week after week, even when it feels imperfect, is kind of amazing. And I also want to celebrate you for showing up with your big open heart, for receiving these episodes week after week, and for letting them land in your bones. I cannot love you guys enough, and I'm so happy you're here with me. So thank you. This has really been such a beautiful journey already, and we're just getting started. So if you're Yay! Welcome to episode 10, you guys. So last week, I dropped an episode all about fear, what it is, how it shows up, all the good juicy stuff, right? And we really learned a lot there, right? We learned about building a relationship with it, right? So that we don't sabotage our lives, right? Have a relationship with fear. And if you haven't listened to that one yet, by the way, honestly hit pause and go give it a listen first. It'll give you some grounding before we dive into today's topic. But if you have listened to the last week's, you know, podcast, let's we're going somewhere else. that almost no one talks about enough today. And that is the fear of success. Because yep, it's a real thing. And for so many of us, especially those of us building businesses or pursuing big creative dreams, it's the thing that sneaks in just when things are starting to go right. And listen, I'm not talking about like anything dramatic or obvious fear. It's subtle, which is why it's even harder to really see. It kind of disguises itself as As procrastination, perfectionism, hesitation, people pleasing, or just randomly decide to redo your whole website instead of sending one scary email. If you have been in it, you know exactly what I'm talking about. You're probably like, oh my gosh, I know what she's talking about. And I personally know this one very intimately because I've lived in it and gotten coaching on it millions of times with hundreds of coaches before. It really has been a really big deal for me. In the early days of my business, I used to think I was just going to have to like battle the fear of failure to get my business to the place I wanted it to go. You know, like what if my content is crap and what if no one signs up for my free workshop and it's free and no one's signing up? And what if I say something, you know, too revealing just to try to sound cool and trendy and it like is not cool and trendy at all. But once I started actually getting getting traction and people reaching out, booking consults. saying yes to working with me, that's when I noticed something weird happening. Every time I'd find a new client, part of me would celebrate and another part of me would like flinch, right? About 20% of me would be like, I'm living my dream, you know, like big flashy. I'd like want to make a neon sign. I'm living my dream. And 80% would be like, how do I freaking get out of this? It's actually a little similar to birth, right? When you're kind of like in birth, sometimes it's It's like, okay, how do I get out of this thing? Like, oh man, what is happening here? So what was going on under the surface of those flinches was the thought, oh no, what if booking all these clients means I don't get my long beach walks anymore? What if I lose my slow mornings and my naps, my spacious life? Like what if success means I become the kind of person who's always like always, always on, always hustling 24 seven and never gets around? rest again. It was like a full panic. I remember one specific time I was getting coaching on it by a particular coach. And he had me kind of take me through my day. And literally, I think I was wearing a swimsuit when I was coaching with him. And my day had been like going to like to the beach solo by myself for a solo swim. And then I think it was like reading a book on my hammock, and then coaching like three different clients back to back, and then picking up my kids and taking them swimming. And like, da, da, da, da, da, da. And he was like, I don't think it's affecting you much. It sounds like you're having exactly what you've been wanting to have. And I was like, okay, you've got a good point. I understand what you're saying. But that low key panic would creep in. And suddenly I find myself shrinking and delaying things, playing small on purpose. I swear, I tweaked this one email announcing a new workshop I was running 12 times. And five weeks later, because I was freaking out, but not because I didn't believe in my Because I didn't want to accidentally build a life. I hated the name of like success. And that's what so many folks go through. And I realized quickly as I became a coach how I was not alone in this, how many people had to coach through it for themselves because they were holding themselves back from real success because what if it changes them, right? So if any of that sounds familiar to you, if you feel yourself holding back, not because you think you'll fail, but because you're scared of what will happen if you actually succeed, You're definitely not alone. And let's talk about it today. Let's go for it. So here's the deal. I don't think most of us are actually afraid of succeeding. What we're afraid of is what we think success is going to cost us. And that fear totally makes sense, right? Our brains are literally wired to avoid discomfort. This, like, they love familiarity, they love safety, and they hate anything that smells like change or visibility, responsibility, you know, or pressure. Any of that stuff, our brains are like, no, that's like, there's no reason to do that. That's like ridiculous. That makes zero sense, right? So your brain will come up with all kinds of clever stories to keep you where you are. I've gathered up some of the most common stories today that I've heard in my own coaching practice over the years so we can like review them and investigate them like a scientist and see what's really behind them because I definitely see the same kind of stories popping up over and over and over, which is, you know, again, we have the same human brain, so that totally makes sense. And I want to look at them today and see like what we can learn about them, right? Because the biggest gift we can give ourselves is awareness and really becoming aware Thank you. All right. So the first story, quotes, that often comes up is, I won't be able to live up to it. Folks will kind of hold themselves back from success because I won't be able to live up to it. And this one is sneaky. You look at someone who's built what you want to build. Maybe they're a coach or a creator or a founder. And you think, yeah, but she's different. She's polished. She's organized. She probably wakes up at 5 a.m. and drinks a green juice and journals for five hours and never gets flustered and always does the right thing. And then you look at yourself in like your, you know, messy bun, your sweats, answering emails from your car, you know, the school parking lot and thinking like, I am just like not cut out for this. Like, you know, she is, but I'm not, right? We create these pedestals for our folks, for our mentors. And we forget that the people we admire are just as human as we are. But maybe, maybe they're more successful, right? Some of them, maybe all of them. but not more worthy, not more perfect, and definitely not immune to the same doubts and messy life stuff that we are dealing with, right? So if you ever thought, If I actually put myself out there and succeeded, I'll have to be this ideal version of me 24-7, right? That's usually the thought that comes up very often. Let's just exhale that out for a moment, right? If you ever have that thought, you're allowed to succeed just as you are. Not shinier, not more filtered, not more superhuman version, just you as you are now doing your best. So many folks, like that is exact work I do with my clients, guys. I'm just helping you plug back into your own awesomeness, not like when you're awesome, not when you actually learn that skill or tweak this or fix this, but actually exactly where you are. And guess what? That's exactly what people connect with anyway. I know that I chose mentors who are like the most loud and proud of that, what hot messes they are. They're the ones that stutter. I have a coach who like totally stutters, talk about their depression all the time run workshops with their washing machines running the background because it reminds me right they are just people like me right they're just they've got clothes to wash they've got kids to happen right that's a huge reason why I decided with my podcast I wasn't gonna edit it out I wasn't gonna edit out like my kids in the background if you hear them or not you know clothes shutting things like that because it's like this is it this is it right this is what it means to be a person trying to really get wisdom out there in the world trying to help people It's just how it is. I am a coach. I am a human. I'm all the things. I'm a mother on many things. Okay, the second story that oftentimes will come up is if I succeed, I'll lose everything I love, right? Similar to what I was talking about for myself in the beginning, right? This definitely is my personal favorite story because my brain loved this one. It said, if your business grows, your freedom will shrink. If you get fully booked, say goodbye to rest, goodbye to your naps. If you make money, you'll have less time. If you say yes to more clients, you're saying no to yourself. Like it was like on loop. Like this is exactly what I would be like going through. And again, I spent so much of my time getting coached on this particular issue because I saw myself holding back because of all of these different things. And for someone like me who loves the slow days and the naps and the walks and the space to breathe, this fear felt like a hard stop. But here's what I had to learn and get coached on over and over, right? And I will tell you, full disclosure, I still get coached on this. I coach myself on this, do self-coaching, and I also get coached by my coaches on this. And what I remind my clients all the time about this is you get to design your version of success. Success doesn't have to mean hustle. It doesn't have to mean chaos. It doesn't have to look like anyone else's business or life. It doesn't have to look like a fully packed schedule with clients back to back. It doesn't have to look like a fully packed speaking schedule or 70 hours of writing on your book. It can look exactly the way you want it to look because at the end of the day, you are always a grown-ass adult that gets to decide. You are no longer, which is something we have to remind ourselves often, we're no longer these six-year-old versions of ourselves that have to ask permission for anything. You do not have to ask permission. You get to be successful and successful exactly the way you want to. You're allowed to build in a way that protects your peace. And in fact, that's what real success looks like to me at least, right? And it includes growth. It includes becoming more of who I am, right? I remember actually when I was very pregnant with my first baby. And a friend of mine who is a doula as well, a birth coach, I was speaking to her and I was saying to her that I had all these fears of like what I was going to be like during birth. What was that going to like? How is it going to act? How is going to be all these things? It was really kind of like coming up for me. And she said something to me that I freaking love and I bring into like different aspects of my life all the time, which is you're going to be exactly yourself. Exemplified, like you're going to be you times 50. right? You're going to be you, but like even more you than you've ever been before. And that's how it is also with success. When you're in it and you're doing your thing and you're like booking your clients and you're selling your paintings and you're, you know, booking out your yoga studios and things like that. It's not like all of a sudden you're going to be a different person. You're going to be you, just now you on a different level. You're going to bring all the you-ness that you've been and then you-ify you even more. If that's a word, it's not a word, but now I invented it. Unified. Okay. And also let's be real. You're not going to wake up one day and accidentally have like 50 new clients banging down your door every night. Right? It's just, it's not how it works. Growth is gradual. You get to adjust along the way. I mean, listen, maybe it's possible. Maybe there's a little part. Maybe there is like one person out there that's had woken up, you know, just started their business and they wake up to 50 new clients. Like, okay, it could, there could be something like that, but most likely 99 point nine, it's not going to happen. And it could be a gradual process. And that's on purpose. So you can grow your capacity to bring these new people into your world. So yeah, if you're afraid that success will take something from you, it's time to define success on your own terms, right? You're the one in charge. You will always be the one in charge. It's really important to know that. And by the way, the way I decided to become the boss of that issue was by seeing how all those things I love, like play and rest and beach walks, being with my kids, you know, all those kinds of things were really my best business strategy secret and not what was keeping me from my business. And now it's exactly what I teach my clients, how to book in their schedule with the play, creativity, rest time, you know, as their first thing before anything else goes in there, you know, business, home, family, all those kinds of things. And by the way, PS, if you guys got your hands on my Have you guys like seen my free, amazing, soulful scheduling workbook that I created? It's really amazing. It's actually, I call it Not Your Mama's Scheduling Workbook because it's really teaching new skills that like our incredible women, our lives, our mothers, our grandmothers, all of these beautiful women worked their butt off, did unbelievable things. And the one place I think that they didn't get and weren't taught was how to incorporate them into all of it, how to incorporate, how to take care of themselves, how to be restful and playful, all these kinds of things. And so this guide is really allowing you to learn how to be consistent in your businesses with your families and your life and being consistent with self-care and self-love for yourself. So if you haven't got your hands on that, you should. And you could just hop over to my website and grab it right there, actually, tamarcoaching.com. It's the first thing you'll see on the page and I'll put my website into the show notes so you can see that but you should definitely grab that because it's a good one and it'll really help with this particular issue and yeah and now that's what I do guys it's also so much of what I'm teaching in my coaching really like how we like how do we be consistent is that and I'm going to actually have a whole podcast coming out about this but consistency is not something that we have to willpower through it's the opposite it's how we have to love ourselves through in order to create a space that we will want to keep on coming back to and working on all the things that we want to be working on. But that's a different topic for a different day. So, okay, number three, the third story that oftentimes comes up for folks is if I succeed, I'll have to keep it up forever. Do you feel that one, guys? This one's a hard one. It hits hard, right? If I succeed, I'll have to keep it up forever. By the way, you also could like, there could be simultaneous stories coming up for folks. You don't have to like choose one and be like, oh yeah, that's my story. You could have all of them if you want. It might naturally come up for you. So this definitely feels like a hard one. This is a voice that will say, what if I do build something amazing and then I can't do it again? Or I want to change my mind or I want something different. I'd be letting everyone down. So what happens is we freeze. We We don't go all in because we're afraid of being trapped by our own potential. But listen, you're allowed to evolve. You're allowed to change your mind. You're allowed to say, this season's complete. I'm done. Or I'm going to go at it again and let it be different than the first time. And that's okay. Right? And I will say, I'm saying it very simply, but it takes freaking bravery to do that, guys. It really does. But it is something that we can do. We are allowed to grow. We're allowed to evolve. We're allowed to change our minds. Not only are we allowed, we must. We crave it as much as we crave all our other survival mechanisms of like, you know, wine to eat and drink and all these things that we want to be growing. We want to be expanding. We want to be evolving, right? Nothing about your success has to be to be permanent. There are so, so many stories like this. Harper Lee, right, who wrote To Kill a Mockingbird. And she didn't publish by this is a really interesting fact. She didn't publish another another novel for over 55 years after To Kill a Mockingbird came out. And, you know, Lauren Hill, who dropped like an iconic album and won five Grammys or something like that. You know, she I think it was like in 1999 and never released another solo one after that. And she also, she was someone who spoke openly about how fame crushed her creative freedom. And it's probably all of you that that pressure, that pressure of like, well, if I, you know, do something really great, then then what? Then what do I do? It's like only going downhill after that. These are people whose work, you know, exploded into the world. But instead of unlocking more creativity, more freedom, it froze them. Because once everyone's watching, once everyone expects greatness, the fear of disappointment can really take over. And that is the fear of success in action, not the fear of failing, the fear of having to live up to something, of being trapped by your own experience, of being so known that you stop being free. But, you know, it's even more real. And this is something to know. You are right to choose what comes next. You can start again. You get to pivot. You can peace out entirely if you want. Be like, peace out, yo. I'm out of here. Right? Success doesn't owe you. Right? And you own it. You own your success. You get to choose that. Okay, number four. You ready? Success will change me. It will totally change me. This is, I think, a fear that definitely comes up for a lot of people, I think specifically for women. And I hear it all the time in coaching, to be honest. You know, what if I become obsessed with money? What if I get so focused on achieving that I lose my relationships? What if I turn into something I don't like? You know? I think a few episodes ago, I forgot which one, I had mentioned about Jenny J. Lowe, right? And it's an interesting, I definitely bring her up a lot. I know twice now, but it's an interesting one because, you know, she has like a whole song, you know, Jenny from the block that talks exactly about this, where she's really like, guys, like, I promise I didn't, you know, I'm not changing. I might have like, you know, I had a little, now I have a lot, but I promise you I'm the same person. Right. And she like, was like looking for the validation of like, you know, I need like, I'm, I'm going to be the same person I promised, but she, That's like, there is change that does happen, right? But it's not change that you're going to not want, right? You're not going to randomly wake up one day greedy and soulless because your business grew, right? You're not a freaking robot, right? Again, you're a grown-ass person with a soul and a consciousness and a heart that knows how to come back home, right? Success is not the one in charge. You are in charge. This thought is basically implying that success is in charge. I have nothing to do with it. My life is going to change. I'm going to change. No one's going to like me, right? We want to know who are you becoming is a result of your choices. You get to choose. So if you don't want to prioritize money over people, you don't. If you want to stay grounded, you do. You do the practice that keep you that way, right? You check in with yourself. You build integrity. You course correct as needed, right? Sometimes you might go off, right? When you come into new money or new success, there are things that come up. You easily can course correct. Success doesn't corrupt you. You know what does? ignoring yourself. So let's not blame success for something that's totally within your own power to navigate. That is a really important piece. So guys, yeah, fear of success is real. It is the fear of being seen, the fear of responsibility, the fear of change, and the fear of a lot of things. But it's also the edge of your next brave thing. And sometimes the most radical thing you can do is let your life get really, really, Good. Oh, I want to say that again because I just felt good to say it. Sometimes the most radical thing you can do is let your life get really, really good. And so many of us don't allow that. So many of us get so scared and want to run the other way. But let yourself receive. Let yourself grow. Let yourself be a little messy and really magnetic. Let yourself be soft and powerful. Can you just feel that? Can you feel that? I can feel that. Let success be the next evolution of your self-trust of what you actually do here on this planet while you're earth side. It's so important. Wow. All right, guys. Well, that is what I got today. This is what I got today. And I just want to say if this episode made you feel seen, if it helped you in any way, I'd love, love, love, love, love if you take 30 seconds to show this podcast some love as well. That's how you do it. I know it's kind of complicated sometimes for folks. You know, it doesn't make it so clear. But what you want to do is you want to hit that follow or that plus button on your podcast app. So that podcast will tell you if a new episode coming in so you'll never miss it you want to scroll down to where it says ratings and reviews and you tap the stars hopefully five stars if you're vibing with me and if you want to go the extra mile with a short review just you know take a sentence or two about what you're loving what it does is guys the reviews it helps other people find the podcast it seriously means the world to me and if there's someone in your life like a friend a sister a Whoever, someone building something brave as well, who needs to hear this, send it to them. You just push, you know, send. You can text it to them, share it on Instagram, leave it a sticky note on the forehead, whatever freaking works, just do it. And if you're listening, thinking, oh, I might be holding back on my life or business because of this exact fear. This is what I do, guys. This is what coaching is for. So if you want support working through it with someone who totally gets it, who sees both yourself softness as well as your fire. I definitely got space for you here. I'll put a link in the show notes to book a consult, but it's basically on my site, which is, you know, Tamar Coaching, T-A-M-A-R coaching.com slash consult. And it's free and it's relaxed and it could change the way you build everything from here. So I highly suggest you hop on there. All right, my loves, I'll see you next time. Have a beautiful, beautiful day.