Choosing Comfort Over Desire
A few weeks ago I was attending a virtual leadership workshop and I had a big insight that was a little confronting to own. We were doing a visioning exercise, owning our desires and then looking ahead to see how we might get in our own way around bringing our vision to life. This is something that I’ve done numerous times for myself and facilitated countless times for my clients. This time around I had a huge aha moment. I realized how many times I choose my own comfort over actualizing my desires (gulp: tough insight to swallow because it happens much more than I care to admit).
I know I’m not alone in choosing comfort over desire, although it often feels like I am. So what exactly has us staying in our comfort zone? Fear is one of the biggest reasons. In a 2021 study by Statista, 42.6% of U.S. entrepreneurs had fear of start-up failure. According to another study by GlobeNewswire, 31% of Americans are afraid of failure in general, which is higher than the fear of spiders and public speaking (both 30%). According to the same study, 49% of Americans agree that fear of failure prevents them from achieving or revisiting their goals. Almost half of Americans are afraid of failure AND it prevents them from achieving their dreams. That is a big number! While fear of failure is a big contributor to not achieving our goals, fear of success also deserves a seat at the table.
In a study conducted in 1976 and published in the Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, they found that the fear of success and the fear of failure were interrelated. The study found that when we fear success, we’re worried we might experience the following behaviors from others due to our success – jealousy, criticism, sabotage, rejection, pressure. When we’re afraid of success we’re afraid of how we might be judged by others. When we’re afraid of failure we’re also afraid of how we might be judged by others but there is a large part of it that includes self-judgment and how we’re measuring up to our own definitions of success or what we’ve been told success is meant to look like.
With such a huge number of Americans suffering from fear of some kind when it comes to reaching their goals, what sets the other half apart? How do we move through the fear to get what we want? Here are a few places to start:
Redefine what success means to you. Make sure your definition includes how you want to feel, make sure it’s measurable and that everything you include in your definition you actually have control over.
Question where your definition of success came from. Many of us have adopted our ideas of success from parents, society or friends. Get real with yourself getting to the root of where your definition of success came from and asking if that definition is still serving you. If it’s not serving you, create a new definition.
Create process goals instead of outcome goals. An outcome goal is: getting promoted or getting married. A process goal is taking moments to stay connected to my partner on a daily basis or staying committed to excellence on a daily basis at work. Process goals allow you to actively stay connected to what you want.
Release the judgment. Do the inner work to release any judgment you’re holding around failure or success. It’s the judgment that keeps us exactly where we are at. When we judge ourselves we prevent ourselves from accessing our deepest desires and we prevent ourselves from taking action. It’s in witnessing ourselves in the fear without any judgment that allows us to expand into what it is we’re wanting to create.
Get good at being with fear. There is a good chance the fear may never go away. In fact 90% of CEOs agree that fear of failure is their main cause of distress (Northwest Venture Partners). Practice being with the fear and taking action anyway. Many of the most successful people still feel fear all the time, they’ve just gotten really good at taking action while they’re afraid.
I would love to hear other ways you’ve found to move outside of your comfort zone in service to achieving your greatest desires.
xx