WHY I’ve been afraid of success.

diary of an artistic entrepreneur 
April 4th 2014 – 11:54am
Coffee Shop, sipping on a vanilla latte.

My previous diary entry left me acknowledging that I was afraid of success. Little did I know that the very next day, one single phone call would help me discover why I was afraid of success. The call came in at 7pm on the dot. A call that would have me in tears, a call that would leave me changed. 

See, I used to get nervous about Skype calls. Whether it was a chat with an old friend, or an interview for a podcast – the nerves would get to me, and it was holding me back. And I hate when things hold me back.

So I made the decision to book myself silly with as many Skype calls as I possibly could. Because … there’s only one way to get over your fear of something, right? To jump into it. To live in it. To be one with it.

With Skype calls almost each and every single day since making that decision, so many good things have come my way. I’ve made new friendships, I’m part of new mastermind groups, and I’m even doing weekly soul-care sessions with Sasha. I’m proud of myself because now I slide into interviews and Skype conversations with ease. The fear and nerves are no longer a part of it.

And so, at 7pm on the dot, I picked up the Skype call with ease and confidence, and as Michelle* walked me through the process of her intuitive business consultations, I felt good.

This recent feeling of something “missing” within my business has been driving me crazy. It feels overwhelming, paralyzing, and confusing all at the same time. It’s like God is holding me up in the air, my feet are dangling, and I’m trying to run full speed ahead, but I can’t get anywhere because I’m suspended two feet off the ground.

“Something is holding me back, and I just can’t put my finger on it.” I exclaimed to Michelle*.

Question after question we dug deeper into the problem, and before I knew it – the answer was staring me straight in the face.

What does the next level of success for me look like? And why am I resisting it?

Since I’m the face and name of my business and brand, more success means more publicity. It means more eyes on me. It means the ability to inspire and motivate more people to start their own businesses and follow their dreams, which I LOVE – but it also means more sharing, more blog posts, more pictures, more insights, more personal thoughts.

And all of this inevitably means less privacy.

And something within me always cringed at the thought of less privacy.

As in – I wasn’t sure if I could really deal with less privacy.

And that’s where the block existed.

To me, the idea of achieving any more success would inevitably mean less privacy.

Michelle* probed deeper, “Why does privacy matter so much to you? Why does less privacy make you so uncomfortable?”

At first, I just couldn’t figure it out. But suddenly it came to me, without much effort at all, as though it appeared out of nowhere:

My entire childhood was spent growing up in places that simply weren’t safe. Caracas, Venezuela, a city where I spent five years of my childhood, has been named multiple times as the most dangerous city in the world.

And so it’s easy to understand that, as I was growing up, privacy equaled safety.

And so now, as an adult, it’s unknowingly been holding me back because my mind was making the following connections:

more success = less privacy
less privacy = less safety

therefore …
more success = less safety

And since the safety and wellbeing of my family always comes first, even above success, it was safer for me to settle for less success, because it meant more safety.

And there it was.

A belief that served to protect me in my childhood was no longer serving me as an adult.

WOW.

It blows my mind to have identified this block that I didn’t even know was affecting me, and to be able to remove it and overcome it. Like a boss 😉

Major a-ha moment? Totally.

I’m excited to share more, and to put more of ME online. But most of all, it’s incredible to truly understand, for the first time in my life, that there are MANY false beliefs that we pick up along our journey in life that hold us back every day.

New mission: Identify blocks + conquer. Oh yeah.

 

*Michelle Simmonds is an intuitive success coach.
**Sasha  Stone a wellness & goddess coach.