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(2) The fear of success. If you prove you can do something well,
people will expect it of you all the time. Show you can fix delicious
desserts and you'll be asked to make them. Show you can take good
notes and you will become the secretary. Show you can make the best
grade in the class and the teacher as well as your parents will expect it
every time. If you are successful, you may acquire more
responsibilities and expose yourself to more hurts. Be successful on
the job and you will be given more to do. Be successful in love and you
are in jeopardy of being dumped (or having children to support). Do
well in school and you will be expected to continue in school until you
do poorly.
(3) The fear of excelling. Maslow, who studied self-actualizers,
i.e. creative, outstanding achievers, thought that many of us fear and
dislike successful people...and, thus, we may be reluctant to become
great. Consider how often we hear someone's achievement degraded:
"Wonder how he got so much--probably his family had money" or
"Wonder who she had to sleep with to get where she is" or "I'd have
lots of friends too if I had a car like that and money" or "Anyone could
make all A's if all they did was study." Such put downs of reasonable
goals (status, promotions, friends and grades) sounds a little like "sour
grapes" and this kind of thinking might reduce one's drive to achieve
one's own potential.
(4) The fear of knowing. A lot of people would be reluctant to
find out their spouse was unfaithful or abusing the children or breaking
the law. Once you know, you may have to take action. If you don't
know, you don't need to do anything. Likewise, people avoid finding
out what is wrong with a person lying on the sidewalk. Knowing the
situation requires a person to do something because ignorance can no
longer be used as an excuse. Likewise, knowing the poverty, illness,
and starvation in the world puts pressure on us to act. Discovering a
problem at work or knowing a better solution to a problem than the
boss knows can sometimes be scary. Drinkers, smokers, over-eaters,
procrastinators, and insulters don't want to know the eventual results
of their behaviors. We use defense mechanisms to keep from knowing
the truth about ourselves.
Do any of these fears ring true for you? If so, awareness may be
the first step to overcoming the barriers to becoming your best true
self.
STEP THREE: Learn all you can about personality (ch. 9), self-
concept (ch. 6), personal dynamics (chs. 7 & 8) and
interpersonal relations (chs. 9 & 10).
Learn about psychology but realize there is an enormous gulf
between psychological book-learning and practical, usable wisdom.
The gulf is primarily "practice, practice, practice" in terms of applying
the principles to your own life. Learn about cases--real human lives--
and ask yourself: "Could that be true of me too?" Make use of the
methods in chapter 15 for increasing your self-awareness.
