Mental Stumbling Blocks for Business- Fear of Success, Part I

Business people have a wide laundry list of stumbling blocks that can handily sabotage their success. Just this week a solo entrepreneur (let's call him Bill) came in to talk about his desire to have greater success in his selling. It did not take long before he stated that his father was not able to provide very well for him and his four siblings. This client was well aware that his own father felt bad about this. Bill thought if he was more successful than his father it would certainly make his 75 year old father feel even more inadequate. Bill said this was a tape that just kept running over and over inside the recesses of his mind. He did not realize, however, how this tape put the brakes on his sales.

Are these blocking beliefs conscious for most people? No. Most people have fears of success that are completely unknown to them. For Bill, being a conscientious, sensitive middle-child son, he would never want to do anything to hurt his father's feelings, or, for that matter, be viewed unfavorably by his father.

We used some creative EFT to release the stuck blocking beliefs and in 20 minutes the many aspects of this block were gone.

This is one of many classic examples of "Fear of Success" themes that keep people unconsciously selling within a lower comfort zone than what they profess to want. Bill knew intellectually that his father was proud of him, but his gut, his non-conscious self, was in conflict about making his father proud and at the same time not feeling he could be more successful than his dad. His blocking belief and emotion made it seem mandatory to "protect" his father and maintain a lower sales comfort zone.

It's essential to ask yourself two important questions:

1. What do I really want for myself? Be specific.

2. What might be keeping me from not wanting to go there?

One good method to begin identifying what's really supporting your sabotage of success is a "stream of consciousness" writing. Set a timer for 10 minutes and write as fast as you can about any and every thought about reasons you would not want to achieve the success you talk about. You'll be amazed at what you uncover! Your list may look like a litany of thoughts that have, in fact, convinced your non-conscious self to make sure you don't succeed. Or at a minimum, these thoughts make success extremely hard work.

In 22 years of working with private clients, it's apparent that getting to the blocking beliefs very quickly is the first key in blasting them out and getting to the results you want. I'll talk about the second key in an upcoming blog. Thanks for listening and talk with you soon!