Who are you protecting?

Who is threatened by your success? Who gets scared when you let yourself shine? Do you crawl back in your box when you see the frightened look on their face?

Intellectually, we know that we are not doing anyone any favors by protecting people. That you would hold yourself back for another person to feel safe is obviously not good for either person. You need to break free, and they need to be pushed out of their comfort zone. It is pop psychology and common sense.

So why do we keep protecting other people? It is an emotional issue and it usually goes really deep. The primary charge probably occurred in childhood. It is usually from an insecure parent being threatened by the beauty of your being. When you were young, you needed the acceptance of your parent(s) for survival. The risk of being awesome and beautiful was too high. So you molded yourself into something that was palatable for your parent(s) and the rest of your family. You learned to fit in. You learned to not rock the boat.

But you are not a child anymore. You are not reliant on your parent for survival. They may not even be alive anymore. It is just a habit or behavioral pattern now. You may have replaced your insecure parent with a new family member- or a boss or friend. So now when you shine or get ready to break free- it is them that becomes frightened.

So we crawl back in our box for them. All is well in Camelot again. Our relationship might not be able to handle it. It’s not that big a deal to stifle our passion. We can tell ourselves our dreams are not that important. We could be happy and free. But as long as everyone feels safe and comfortable- it’ll be alright.

Until it’s not.

Are you willing to fail?

Several years ago, Robert Kiyosaki, author of Rich Dad, Poor Dad and numerous books on financial intelligence, was on Oprah speaking about the power of starting your own business. One of the audience members indignantly challenged Robert saying, “What would you say about the fact that one out of ten businesses fail?” Robert said something like, “Well, then I guess I’m gonna have to start ten businesses.”

Add to that my all-time favorite TV commercial (you got to check it out- YouTube link) with Michael Jordan saying, “I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life and that is why I succeed.”

Successful people are not afraid to fail. They do not get all neurotic and say, “I started that business and it failed. Shame on me. I will never do that again.” They simply learn from it and move on to another opportunity.

Same with relationships. How many people give up after a “failed” relationship? They break up or get a divorce and interpret it as a failure. They say, “I guess love is not meant for me.” No… they simply did not possess the necessary skills and awareness, yet. Ironically, the skills and awareness that only come from experience. What kinds of experiences? Failures.

Successful people seem to view it differently. They see failure as a positive thing. They see it as an opportunity to learn and to ultimately succeed. It is business to them- they take risks and realize that some will fail and some will succeed. They do not dwell on failure; they simply move on. They do not let some measly failure deter them from what they are after.

So give it another shot- the next one will likely be a grand slam. After all… what have you got to lose?

Fear of failure and fear of success

It’s football season again and within the past couple of weeks, two of the arguably best players of all time spoke about how the fear of failure has affected them.

Jerry Rice (website link) said in his Hall of Fame speech, “I was afraid to fail. I’m here to tell you that the fear of failure is the engine that has driven me throughout my entire life. … Not wanting to disappoint my parents and later my coaches, is what pushed me to be successful.” (sfgate.com link of full interview)

Brett Favre (website link) identified the fear of failure as the thing that held him up from about returning to play this year. He stated on national TV during last weeks preseason game, “I can only control what I do, but I don’t want to fail.” (NBC Sports)

So Jerry Rice spoke of this fear as his ally. Brett Favre spoke of it as something he had to overcome. But what about the rest of us? How does fear of failure affect us?

Fear of failure is often prevents us from even trying (like it almost did for Brett). This of course becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy for our “I will fail” belief system. It often comes from the fear of disapointing someone that we wanted to be proud of us (like it was for Jerry).

Bart Anderson, spiritual teacher, was listening to his students speak about the fear of failure one day. He wasn’t buying it. He said, “People who are afraid of failure are usually really successful.” (Hmm… like Jerry Rice or Brett Favre?) He continued, “You (referring to the students) have created an awful lot of failure for people that are afraid of it. It seems more like a comfort zone for you. You are afraid of success.”

The fear of success is the fear of having to challenge your belief systems about yourself and subsequently having to reevaluate everything.

Whichever it is for you, what matters is that you overcome it. Both football greats did. After all, it is only fear and not real- no need to have it control your life.