Do You Fear Success?

There are many types of fear which can hold us back, especially in a field like gambling where you are faced with a high degree of uncertainty every day.  You are probably afraid of losing bets, and you may also be afraid of missing good opportunities (this can lead to betting when you shouldn’t).  You may fear the hit your pride will take if you are wrong.  But maybe you also fear success.

If you have never thought about the fear of success before, you might laugh.  Why would anyone fear succeeding and making tons of money?  There are a lot of reasons, however, and this kind of fear can really hold you back. 

• If you start succeeding with betting on sports, there will be major changes in your life.  Your financial situation will change, but so will your daily life.  You may be forced to confront even bigger choices, like whether or not to quit your day job.  This can be very scary.

• You may be uncomfortable with what people will think of you if they find out you gamble for a living.

• You may have self-esteem problems, and may be punishing yourself by avoiding success.  You will have to do an honest self-assessment to figure out if you are doing this.  This will be tricky, because if you are self-sabotaging, you will probably also sabotage your efforts at an honest look in the mirror. 

• If you have been down for the count for a long time, you may be so used to it you have forgotten what success feels like.  As human beings, we have the amazingly unhelpful ability to get comfortable even in the worst circumstances.  This can prevent us from bettering our situations because we are stuck in a rut.

• Fear of success may stem from your attitude toward risk.  If you are a risk-averse person, you are probably great at dealing with risk (by avoiding it), but you may have no idea what to do with success.  You may freeze up when you have a shot at making it big.  Risk-seekers will not usually freeze up like this in these situations, but will generally freeze up in other situations where a risk-averse person will keep moving forward. 

What should you do if you believe you have a fear of success?  It depends partly on what is causing that fear, but in general the key is to adjust your perspective and replace unhealthy assumptions with healthy ones.  If you are punishing yourself, you need to find ways to raise your self-esteem.  If you are highly risk-averse, you will need to pursue a more balanced approach to managing risk.  If you are used to failure, set some smaller, achievable goals so you can taste success again.  Know that you may have huge decisions to make in your future—but don’t worry about what other people think of you.  Very few people can make it as professional gamblers, and if you can, you have a lot to be proud of!