Why Sensitive People Fear Success

Because I realised I fear success WAY MORE than I fear failure.

I’m a HSP. Highly Sensitive Person.

A Highly Sensitive Person, as defined by Dr. Elaine Aron, is a person who has increased emotional sensitivity, a stronger reactivity to both external and internal stimuli and a complex inner life.

I'm also highly ambitious.

I have big dreams, endless motivation and a willingness to try. I love the thrill and challenge of a dream unrealised. And I have many dreams.

You would think that being both highly sensitive and highly ambitious is a recipe for disaster. My ambition causes me to want to go for my big dreams and my sensitivity could cause a heart-wrenching experience if\when I inevitably fail. It sounds like I’m setting myself up for pain and disappointment.

But the truth is, I find success much scarier than failure.

Why I Love Failure

Okay, “love” is perhaps too strong of a word. I would much prefer to succeed, than to fail. But failure is awesome. First off, it isn’t anything new to me. So there’s no fear of the unknown when it comes to failure. But also, failure is something I can learn from. Something didn't work out? Never mind, I just received a whole new bag of lessons, skills and insights that I can take with me to the next project.

I like ‘failure’ because I'm of the mind that the true failure is having never tried, not having tried and ‘failed’. Of course, sometimes our fears are so monumental that they block us from taking steps towards our dreams altogether.

But I'm personally much more afraid of having never tried. Of having never even given myself the opportunity to see if I could succeed. I hate living with that question dangling over my head - could I have succeeded if I had just tried? I prefer the certainty of knowing that I could or couldn't. And I live for the thrill of finding that out.

So I don't fear failure, which is good. But, as I had realised at some point, and stated earlier in this post, what often stops me reaching for the stars is not a fear of failure, but a fear of success.

Why do we fear success? Isn't that what we want?

Of course it’s what we want.

We often want it from an ego place, because we believe that if we are ‘successful’, however you define that, then we will receive antidotes to the wounds we carry deep within.

But we also want to succeed from a deep, authentic soul place. Because to accomplish certain goals, finish certain projects, and put ourselves out there, is actually aligned with who we truly are. In these cases, our success is crucial because it’s actually us being of service to our (and others’) growth and evolution.

But it’s immensely scary. Especially for those of us who are more sensitive.

I’m of the belief that our true versions of success, are when we are the most authentic and aligned to our soul’s desires. When we’re the most seen as we are and using our authentic gifts in ways that are of service. Basically, success is when we’re in our light and being the highest versions of ourselves.

But we are stopped from being our most successful (read: authentic) selves, because we hold many blocks and fears. These fears and blocks exist, because we had already experienced being our most authentic selves and with it came a lot of unpleasant and difficult experiences. Especially if who you are authentically, just doesn’t fit a mould or is considered ‘too much’ by society. (Ahem… the criticism we get the most as sensitive people.)

Photo by Diego PH on Unsplash

“Dim your light, child”

I can think of many moments when my passion, my sensitivity, my energy and my sincerity were not only not celebrated, but were judged, criticised and sneered at.

If you were considered ‘too much’, which many sensitive people are, you’ll know that people were often uncomfortable with your bigness. The bigness of your emotions. The bigness of your dreams. The bigness of your ideas.

It made them feel things that they would prefer not to feel. Maybe it triggered them, because they subconsciously recognised a part of themselves in you. Or maybe they truly didn’t understand you and just thought you were weird. Either way, they’d train you to dim your light. To be the same as everyone else. Fit in. Be standard. So as to not ruffle any feathers.

And if you find that difficult to do, which you would because it’s not who you are authentically, then you’d be on the receiving end of even more rejection, criticism and judgement.

We can’t escape being rejected, criticised and judged. It’s a part of living in this world with other human beings and I’m not of the belief that there should never be appropriate or healthy rejection, criticism and judgement in life. These experiences have positive functions that are helpful in finding what and who we’re most aligned with, as well as facilitating our growth as people.

But they’re not fun experiences and as sensitive people, we can feel the pain of these more acutely and profoundly. In fact, we already have experienced this profoundly. That’s what caused the fear of success. We dared to dream big, share our insights, express our feelings, and we received in return, “Dim your light, child.”

If success requires us to be in our light, we fear success because our light was already rejected, criticised and judged. And we fear that it will happen again.

For those of us who aren’t highly sensitive, maybe we could brush these rejections, criticisms and judgements off more easily. But for those of us who are, we feel greatly and we feel deeply. We’ve subconsciously learned that it’s best not to showcase our full light, because doing so leads to backlash, which we find very intense. It’s a problem when being truly successful, as I define it, only happens when you’re fully owning your light.

“Ooh! I want a piece of you”

With great success comes great attention. Sometimes, that attention is positive. It’s a waterfall of love and acknowledgement for what we were able to do. And we deeply want to be seen and acknowledged. But not all attention is good attention.

Light attracts more light, which is beautiful. But light also attracts moths who clamour to get a piece of you, because they have no light of their own.

I’m fully aware of the moths that can arrive when you show up in your full light. The insidious kind of energy vampires who can leech and take from you, because they decided that they’re entitled to you. What if my success and my light attracts the kind of energy and people who I need to protect myself from? Are my boundaries strong enough for that?

And even if I never encounter that kind of scary attention, but only huge amounts of positive attention - do I have the nervous system for that? True recognition and acknowledgement is wonderful and moving. I would appreciate and be grateful for it beyond words. But in huge amounts, I worry it may feel overwhelming and exposing, even though it’s wonderful.

Do I have the capacity to feel everything that success can bring, when it’s on such a huge scale? I already feel so much, even when the scope of a situation is smaller. And even without insidious intentions on others’ parts, there could still be an expectation or desire to reveal and give more of myself than I’m comfortable with, that I’ll have to manage. So much attention, good or bad, can be overwhelming for sensitive nervous systems.

“You mustn’t make any mistakes”

With great success comes great responsibility. Once you’ve ‘made it’, there’s bigger expectations placed on you, both fair and unfair. You may be put on a pedestal, revered and turned into someone ‘special’.

But, the inevitable happens - you make a mistake. You either misstep, or you misspeak, or you have a very human moment which shows everyone you’re not perfect. Uh oh. People don’t like imperfect. People don’t allow room for mistakes.

As sensitive people, we take our responsibilities very seriously. Because we care deeply about our fellow beings and we’re in tune with how much our actions and words can affect others. We’ve likely experienced firsthand when someone wasn’t responsible with their power and got badly hurt.

So if we fall short, we are particularly hard on ourselves. Add having messed up in front of the world, and we’re subject to other people being hard on us too. That sometimes feels like too much to bear.

Photo by Melissa Askew on Unsplash

So why try to succeed at all? Why not stay in your comfortable cocoon and not risk it?

Because, in my opinion, that’s a very sad life.

I don’t want to stay in my little cocoon. Certainly not out of fear, when I want to be out of it.

I want to meet the world with an open heart and share my light. I want to share the beautiful creations that come from my rich, deep and sensitive inner world. I want for that beauty to be seen by others.

It’s a call and a yearning from deep within my soul that I can’t ignore, even if I try. It’s something that I feel a deep need to do.

I know that doing this, I can feel and experience great amounts of joy, fulfilment and connection. I will have facilitated my own growth and evolution, and maybe even others’ too.

Here’s another thing that I’m going to highlight, because it’s been a crucial realisation for me and I want it to hit home:

We often deeply fear, what we deeply desire.

Our souls point us to what we desire. It knows where it wants to go. We can not ignore its calls, nor should we. Our souls desire what it desires for a reason. Ignoring what we truly desire, from a deep soul level, causes us endless and unnecessary strife.

But we deeply fear what we deeply desire, because our desires are outside of our comfort zone. If we truly want the kind of soul-led success that we desire, we’re going to have to confront fears and blocks that we had subconsciously put in front of us. As a result of learning that it isn’t safe to be in our light.

In fact, I’ve come to learn that if I have a deep fear of something, particularly if it’s a fear that I could technically, easily avoid in life - it’s because it’s actually a deep desire. And I can’t avoid my deep desires. And since I can’t avoid my deep desires, then I also can’t avoid confronting my fears and blocks (“Dim your light. child!”, “Ooh! I want a piece of you.”, “You mustn’t make any mistakes.”)

Photo by Randy Tarampi on Unsplash

I’ve been reflecting on my fear of success for at least a year now, trying to grapple with my soul’s desires and a tendency to sabotage my own success out of fear. The realisations as to why I have a fear of success, are laid out in this post. I had learned to hide my light.

I was already gathering my thoughts together and had begun to write this post, when I came across a beautiful post here on Substack, on a day when I really needed it.

I can’t finish this post without giving thanks to Lisa Bolin, a fantastic Queenager (such a brilliant term!) for writing “Reclaiming the Light You Dimmed” and to Lisa Tea, a wonderful HSP writer who shared the post with her followers, where I was able to find and read it.

By writing this post, I’m hoping to name my fears and blocks so that they no longer have any power over me.

Do you reckon you also have a fear of success? What is stopping you from stepping into your light? Feel free to comment below! I love hearing from you <3

Speak soon,

Love Ella x