676: Dump Your Fear of Success

You ever at that point where you feel like, ugh, I am on the cusp of success? This could work. This is the next step. This could really work out. Oh, my gosh. Wow. What if I start earning, like so much more than I do now? What if that promotion puts me right in front of everybody? What if I'm on that stage and I'm visible and I actually get that moment to share my ideas with the world? What if you've got your own, right? These are just, you know, examples and you can almost taste success and then, then comes that other weird reaction in you. I don't know. I don't think I'm going to do this. I don't think this is going to work out. I probably shouldn't do this. Maybe I'll just ignore it and let the ball slip and not return that email on time and God, why did I do that? Why did I let it slip away? Why did I. Why did I kind of freak out? Why did I just go on ignore mode? Whatever it is that we do boils down to this. Why am I afraid of being enormously successful? Why am I afraid? And furthermore, oh my God, I'm afraid of success. That's just crazy. I gotta work that out. Well, you know what? I'm here to help. At least I hope I will help you. Today. I have had these feelings to this desire to go big and grow and be seen and lead whatever success means to you. And at the same time having that knee jerk feeling of. Who am I kidding? So that's what we're going to talk about today in our episode 676, dump your fear of success. Yes, how to dump that fear of success. That is exactly what we are going to laser in on so that you can feel a little freer to move forward with those big dreams that we have, we all have for our futures. Stay with me. Flow Dreaming. It's a show where we talk about the power of your mind to change your world around you, to literally affect the fabric of your reality. About this feeling of hope and joy and relief. And that is what being aware of your flow does. It gives you a feeling of power again in your lives. Breathe. I'm Summer McStravik and welcome to another episode of Flow Dreaming. Ah, yes, the sweet smell of success. Hi everybody, I'm Summer and thank you for being here with me today. I am always happy to be here with you, frankly, even 18 years later. You guys are amazing and you're loyal and I love the ideas that you share with me, especially in my Facebook and Instagram, I always request, hey, you've got show ideas, send them over to me. I'm very, totally open to hearing them. So this one doesn't come from a listener, but it does come from some of my students and things that we've worked out as we've gone through the program together. The program I refer to you can find at my website for flowdreaming.com specifically me school, as well as some of the private coaching work that I do. So this fear of success theme is something that is not just what I find in high performers. It is found in everybody. I mean, all of us, no matter where you work, no matter what you do. And it has some really interesting roots. There are many, of course, so I'll just talk about a couple. And part of the personal growth work that you're doing is to find out, you know, which things relate to you, what are the roots of it for you personally. So I'm going to give you some ideas. You can put this in your little toolbox and maybe it'll help you figure out something. I was talking with a client this last week and she wants to build a home health care business. One of these agencies that help place caregivers with the elderly and sets up all kinds of late in life and end of life treatments and situations. I didn't even realize it is, it's a whole cottage industry how you help your aging parents, essentially. And she wants to take this business and make it be more than just something that's just paying her bills each month. She wants to make it grow. She wants to possibly even expand and have this business be represented in other cities. She wants it to go big. And I'm like, go for it. I mean, God, look at the population right now. I mean, it's nothing but aging baby boomers. This is, this is brilliant. She says, yeah, but I go, okay, yeah, here we go. The yeah, but here's the yeah, but here's the yeah, but about what I said, you can be successful, right? You, you, you know that there are steps. And she had started a business prior to this, so she was, it wasn't like she was brand new, but she says, here's the thing. I know what I have to do, but I can't really get myself to do it. Like, I know what I have to do, but every day I find other things to do instead. I want to be successful summer. I want to expand, I want to franchise out. I mean, I want to be able to sell this business at the end of the day for, you know, 500,000amillion, I'm going to have to learn what that even looks like. Even I don't even know how to sell a business. Like, who are the people you even talk to about this? I said, I don't know. We'll get there. She says, but that's what I want. I mean, like, that is the level. That is the success that I want. So we barreled into this. I'm like, well, you know how to do it. Why are you stopped? You know? And she's like, well, Summer, you're supposed to be telling me that, right? That's why I'm consulting you. Yes, you're right. You're right. So I go in and I'm looking around, and I'm feeling. I'm feeling in her, I'm feeling her flow, and things start popping up. Success. What does it mean to you? Well, on the one hand, it meant wealth, right? Security, having more than enough, flowing in, all that's really good stuff. Success meant that she would feel accomplished, that her life was worthwhile. She contributed something good. She made something. She was capable. She proved herself to herself, right? This is success to her. This is, frankly, success to many of us. But there were other things attached to success. Things that were hangers on, you know, the strangers not invited to the party. Things like, you know, I really have never had an employee situation go well. I have always struggled with them. I, you know, I try to be a great boss, but I often feel like I hate it when I have to let people go or they get resentful. It's just. It's just because I just hate this. Having a staff is just such a burden. And I know if I got successful, I would have a very large staff. I don't know a way around that. I don't want that one. That's one. Two. Successful people are hard to be around. I always feel envious around them, guilty around them. Like they think they're better than me, or they just kind of secretly know they're better than me, or they should be the one treating everybody at the table to dinner and drinks instead of all having to, you know, pay separately. Being successful means people feel differently about you. They look at you differently. I don't want to be looked like that. I don't want my. My family talking about me like that. Like, oh, she thinks she's so big. She's so. She's so this. She's so that. I don't like that. I don't want it. That's Number two, this feeling that successful people are somehow living a little bit less happy than we are because of all the things people are thinking about them secretly. They're not just cheering for me, they're secretly unhappy about me, competitive with me. You know, it's made my brother get really kind of edgy with me all the time. It points out his inability. I don't want to do that. I don't want to be that person. And I would be if I was successful. 3. What I'm doing here with this countdown, by the way, I know I didn't really clue you in, just started doing it. I'm counting out these top reasons, these top things well beyond my client. These are the things I've seen in many, many, many, many clients and students over the years. 3. If I get successful, I am going to break my back. I am going to have no time. I will be stressed out, I will fail to have a life. Every successful person I see, my dad, my aunt, my best friend, everybody, everybody I've seen who's been really successful, if they had to make it themselves, if they weren't just born into money, but they actually made it themselves, they are just on the edge of a heart attack all the time. I mean, they're just, they just seem unhappy. They seem like they're racing from one thing to another all the time and then acting like they're not and then they come down with this horrible disease, you know, the stress related thing. I don't want to do that. I really don't want to do that. And I, I think if, if, if to be successful I've got to do that, I'm not going to be successful. I would way rather tinker down here at this level where I am than risk that. So that's why I'm still here. Okay, those were three biggies. I'm going to stick with those three because there's more. Ho ho, ho ho ho. There is more. But do any of those ring a bell with you? And maybe not even exactly the way I described it, Maybe this whole episode for you is just going to get you to kind of turn inward and say, hey, I, I have been kind of, you know, you know, riding my little bicycle on this lower level for a long time. And it's probably because I have assumptions about what success might do to me because otherwise why wouldn't I have tried to grow and go bigger? There's gotta be something stuck in me somewhere in my energy, in my heart, in my mind, in my past. This is why Mindset is so critical. And in my world of flow dreaming, mindset is half the battle. I guess if you talk to any coach today, they're gonna say it's more than half the battle. Because this, you know, untangling of this, of the fear of success thing, what we're really talk about as mindset, but it even goes beyond mindset. It goes into your emotions, it goes into your heart. I mean, fear is not mindset. Fear is fear. Doubt is doubt. Mistrust is mistrust. I like to use contrast sometimes to make a point. Let's say someone said to you, hey, if you scaled up in your life, scaled up in your career, or scaled up in your nonprofit, scaled up in your relationships, right. You can be have a fear of success in relationships too. But if you scaled up, it would work. You would actually have more time. You would have less friction, you would have more people liking you, not less. You would find yourself at peace in your heart as well as in your wallet. Absolutely. 100%. That's what scaling up will do for you. And you would say, wait, wait a second. You mean it's not hard? You mean it's guaranteed I won't fail? You mean people, really, I will have all the best resources or employees or freelancers really, like, you would begin to question it. And those questions are revealing. What those questions say is, these are the things you're actually scared of. Like, I love it when such a simple formula can reveal something that's so supposedly buried in us, the block of pattern, et cetera. A very simple question. If I said to you right now, scale up, you're going to be happier, you're going to have more time, you're going to have more money, you're going to have less risk. It's going to be fabulous. You would immediately, immediately begin, what is on your list. Like, think right now. What's the first thing you'd say? Seriously, you can't guarantee that, right? You might say that to me. You can't guarantee that. And I'd say, right, correct. And that is the fear that you have. You need a guarantee. You're not going to do anything unless there's a guarantee. You have a fear of failing, of not succeeding. You have a fear of dumping your heart into something and having it rejected. And because of that, you've decided to stay where you are and allow yourself to pine for the thing you don't have. Okay, I know I'm doing that brutal mom talk right now, but this is the truth. The more we seek out the truth in ourselves and our behavior, our thoughts, our heart, the freer we become. Whether or not you even choose to break any of these, right, you don't even have to. Maybe you're totally fine with the level of success you have, and you're totally fine pining for more and not getting it because you don't want to get uncomfortable. Not right now. It's not a good time. That is cool. That is fine. But if that's not you, if you're like, yeah, I really do want to learn this. It's time in my life, you know, I'm 38. When am I going to break out? When am I going to break through? I'm 48. When is this going to come together for me? When will I break to the next level? I'm 58. Oh, my God. How much time do I have left? I hear you. You can break through into your success at any time. Any. But you have to pull away the little fears that got stuck to it. Like those barnacles on the side of a ship. You have to pull those off and you have to look at them and say, hey, I don't believe in you. I think that successful people can be genuine leaders and role models and warm and giving, and that's the kind of successful person I will become. I believe that being successful means that I can have great teams around me, that I can learn how to manage and how to lead, or I can find the right people who will do that for me so I can continue to simply innovate and create. I believe that being successful means I don't have to work myself to the bone. In fact, I would never want to build a company based on that because that company would be constantly working me to the bone. So I believe I could be very successful building a company where I do not do that. And I believe that I can figure that formula out. Plenty of people have. Plenty of people have. I see them everywhere. They're hanging out at the Starbucks, for God's sakes, in the middle of the daytime when the rest of us are at work. They figured out they. I have my own business. I'm. I'm just sitting here having a pleasant cup of coffee and relaxing between clients. And. Yeah, I'm. I'm. Yeah. And then I'll go home tonight and, you know, have dinner and, I don't know, go to a movie, whatever. I've got time. I've got balance. What? Who are you? How did you do this? They are there. Everybody. They're there. So you can Erase the work yourself to the bone. Only hard work to succeed. Hard work can succeed if you want to take that route. How about enthused work? Work that you want to do? That's what I want to do for success. I want to feel enthused, I want to do this work. But I also want to build in all those things that I like, like waking up in the morning whenever I want, setting my own time schedule. Now I'm an entrepreneur, so this is relating to me, but related to you. What does it look like? Yeah, I got that promotion so that I could effectively change the entire structure of this division of the company and bring it into the 21st century. Maybe that is your success. Go do it. And don't answer your emails after six. What I'm getting at is all of these fears of success can be overcome. They can be unraveled. But first you've got to see them. And I challenge you. If you've been toying with the idea of growing and going bigger and getting more successful, getting more visible, getting seen, the very first thing you're going to do is write down your list of things you're afraid of. Very first one. Every one of those is the thing that you're gonna tackle next. I know it sucks, but you're gonna do it. Because the prize that awaits on the other side is remarkable. I mean, it is. It is brilliant. It is gorgeous. It's that feeling in you of, I did it, I did it, I did it, I did it, I did it. That is such a powerful feeling, that faith in yourself, that knowing you had the strength to do this, to pursue this, to throw your hat in the ring and say, I'm in, I'm doing it. I'm going there. The strength in you to say, I'm going to build success the way I want to build it. My terms. Someone tells me to build it away and it feels icky. I say, no, thank you, I walk away. I don't care if it's the biggest business coach in the world, I walk away. I want to build success on my terms. I don't want to be afraid of it. Anything that makes me fearful of it? Nope. Out. It's a weird thing, right, that we could be afraid of being successful. We could be afraid of the bad things that will happen to us if we are the hate mail, the naysayers, the trolls, get attacked on social media, customers unhappy. Sometimes we just go straight to that. Maybe that should be number four. Fear of being attacked. Now, that's kind of like that's. Kind of like one of the other ones, right? Family not liking you, you changed. Just a variation on that one. But you know that people who are successful. Yeah. They're often a lot more visible. It means they've impacted and reached a lot more people. And the people they've reached, they're grateful. I get emails, you guys, every. Every week. You've changed my life. I've been listening to you since 2005-2009-2020-2021. I've been listening to you. I've taken your classes. I have. You've changed my life. I found you right when I need. Those emails stacked up over the life of my work. How could I not try to be more successful? How could I not? I feel like I would be depriving all of these future people from something that might have made a major difference for them. How could I not try for that? The few naysayers, the few critics that I've had, and I've had some doozers, believe me, they. They're a drop in the bucket. They really are. And I want you to feel the same way. The work you do, the impact you do, what you'll make, what you'll achieve, far outshines or exceeds anything of the negative people that might pop up around you. And they will swim around you. There are always piranhas in some rivers, but you know what? You're in a hefty steel boat and you've got this whole group of people waiting on you to arrive. Go, go, go, go, go, go. So I don't know if that was motivational enough for you or not, but I hope it is. I really, really hope it is. And yeah, we didn't really go into the flow dreaming underpinnings of success in this episode today, but let's just say again, you can use flow dreaming to create your success, to get through your fear of success. There are plenty of flow dreams you can find in the library@flowdreaming.com There are courses, actually that I've created on this. You should check out my courses, guys. I've got like 18, 19 of them now. It's ridiculous. Tons of these teachings where I walk you through the worksheets and I help you through them, but go check them out. Limitless is a great playlist if you're trying to go big and break through. Also thriving wealthy entrepreneur. Another great playlist. So many for you. You have the supports for this. They're all around you. Your choice is just to pick them up and run with them or not. But I want to leave you with this. You can be as successful as you want. There is nothing to fear. Life is about being seen. It's about shining. It's about being a presence in other people's lives. That's the gift of you in Earth. This gift you've been given of this body and this life is to be seen. Is to have relationships, is to make an impact, is to experience to the degree, whatever degree that you desire it. And if you're one of those really good people, my God, I wish you to make the biggest impact you possibly can make. Because I wish that for all really good people. There are enough icky people making big impacts and please let's outshine them. So go do it. I want to hear about your success. You can email me your success. You can post it on Facebook. Tell me, did this inspire you? Let me know. Let's share. I fully believe in cheering each other on. And I cheer you too. Starting right now. So with that, I wrap up today's episode. It was a little bit short, but I hope very to the point. I've noticed over the years I've become a lot more succinct and I think that's because my teachings have become so. I don't know, mature, developed. I can express them a lot clearly, a lot more clearly in a lot fewer words. So this was your little dose of emotional vitamins. Your little dose of alignment and flow and mindset for the week. Go get em tiger. Go be successful. And until next time, lots of love to you all. My friends. Flow on is a brand new MESS membership and its goal is to keep you in flow, in alignment and in a state of beautiful growth and emergence. Emergence into the next you. Sometimes this is going to mean some healing or renewing your energy from depression or burnout. Or maybe you're going to be pushing into new areas of growth and rampant success. Well, Flow on is your monthly spiritual backpack. It's a brand new program. I haven't done anything like it since. Well it's been so many years when I used to have a Flow Dream of the Month club. Think of this as its new 21st century iteration and Flowon has everything that you need. It's a monthly masterclass, a monthly Flow dream, even some live interaction. And best of all, you can come and go as you please. There's no long term commitments, so please check it out@flowdreaming.com if you're lucky enough and it's enrolling, do grab a spot. It will not be open and available at all times, all year. But if it's open, please jump in. I know you won't be disappointed, and I look forward to traveling with you on this beautiful journey of flow and giving you so many tools, all the tools that I've ever created.