The Missing Peace

Why Are You Afraid of Success? The 6 Fears Holding You Back

• Season 1 • Episode 9

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0:00 | 26:08

Have you ever been this close to a breakthrough — and then stopped? Brooke Benevento and Danielle Griffiths tackle a topic almost nobody talks about: the fear of success. It even has a clinical name — Achievemephobia — and it may be the invisible force keeping you stuck.

Danielle gets vulnerable about "the room" — an office-turned-dumping-ground that's become an 18-month metaphor for self-sabotage. Together they unpack why an unfinished space (or project, or goal) can become the excuse your subconscious uses to avoid leveling up. Brooke then walks through the six fears from Napoleon Hill's Think and Grow Rich that keep people from reaching their potential — and explains how most of us carry them without even realizing it.

They close with a powerful quote from psychotherapist Sylvia Lackey Corcoran and four practical steps you can take today to start moving past fear and into action.

In this episode, you'll learn:

  • What Achievemephobia is — and why "not ready yet" is often fear in disguise
  • How clutter and unfinished projects create a cortisol-driven stress loop
  • The 6 fears that block success: poverty, criticism, ill health, loss of love, old age, and death
  • Why perfectionism is just fear of criticism wearing a mask
  • How your subconscious mind keeps you in a loop — and how awareness breaks it
  • Why the moment you want to quit is usually the moment you're closest to a breakthrough
  • 4 action steps: know what you want, visualize success, reframe failure, and stop overthinking

Resources mentioned:

  • Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill
  • The Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey
  • Sylvia Lackey Corcoran — psychotherapist quoted on fear of success
  • The Thinking Grow Rich Institute

Connect with us:

Have a topic you want us to cover? Want to share your story? Reach out — we'd love to hear from you!

Subscribe so you never miss an episode, and share this with someone who needs to hear it today!

SPEAKER_00

Fear of success is one of the most undernamed clinical presentations I encounter. We dress it up as perfectionism, we call it not ready yet. It's my famous go-to. We frame it as humility. But what it really is in many cases is a nervous system that has learned that being seen, being elevated, being the one who made it comes with a cost. And then they came to be able to support the welcome back to the Missing Peace podcast. My name is Danielle Griffiths. I am here with my lovely co-host, Brooke Benevento. How are you doing today, Brooke?

SPEAKER_01

I'm doing amazing. I'm so excited for this episode.

SPEAKER_00

Me too. Me too. As always, please like, comment, subscribe, share with some friends. We want to keep doing more content for you, but we need your help. So if you can do that, that would be great. What are we going to be talking about today, Brooke?

SPEAKER_01

All right, let's dive in. Today we have today we have another great episode for you all. We are going to discuss why are people afraid of success? And Danielle has done, again, some amazing research on this. So, Danielle, what have you found while we were uh research while you were researching this?

SPEAKER_00

So I know I'm gonna probably share a story later, but I'm I am really questioning a lot of why I do things and why I don't do things. So this research was fascinating. So I always like to start with definitions so we can kind of agree with what a word means. There were two main definitions of success, and I'll read them real quick. The first one was the accomplishment of an aim or a purpose. Pretty, pretty straightforward. So the second definition is the attainment of fame, wealth, or social status. And that I thought was really interesting because I feel like a lot of of society is with the second definition. You know, you have to be a household name, you have to have millions, if not billions of dollars, you need to be famous. And I just I don't know if I agree with that because I think everyone has their own idea of what being successful is. For me, I wanted to be in control of my time. It was, it was difficult to have to, you know, get up super early. One of my first jobs, I worked as a supervisor in a factory. I had to get up at like three in the morning, work till about 1:30, come home, take a nap. Uh, then I was, I was, you know, in the teacher credential program. So I was going to class at night. And I didn't feel like I had control of my time. I felt like my time kind of controlled me. So, in my heart of hearts, success is being in control of my time and and finding peace. I feel like that that's one of the things we're always trying to do is to find peace and have every day be happy and peaceful and not, oh, it's Monday. Oh, it's, you know, and not be such a bother.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. Yeah. I totally agree with that too. I through my through the process that I've gone through with my awakening and everything, I have realized that everything leads to peace. You know, you want love that creates peace. You want money that creates peace. And, or, you know, you want everything, it just seemed like in my life was like, okay, if I wanted that, what was that creating? Well, at the end of the day, it was just creating peace for me. So I really love that you say that because I feel I feel that same way. And something else that we found in our research was that there is actually a name for this that we are talking about this, this, this fear of fear of success. And it was, it's called Achieve Phobia. Achieve phobia. Okay. This this is the fear of really a fear of success. And it is often is derived from a subconscious desire to avoid increased responsibility, social strain, or intense pressure that accompanies accomplishment. Okay, that was kind of mind-blowing when I read that because I didn't even know there was a name, and I know that Danielle was also mind-blown by that too. And this is gonna this is really going to feed into something that is Danielle is going through right now. And we have always told you guys that we are gonna be very transparent with you guys. We're going to be as vulnerable as we can. And so today we are going to share something. Um, Danielle's gonna share something that's very vulnerable. And I also want to say before she, I also want to say before she shares this story, I have been in this exact position probably 10, 15 times. And as you grow, you will continue to have to go through a lot of these phobias to get to where you, your highest self, your other self, your who you're supposed to be, right? What you're supposed to achieve in your life, um, the person that you're trying to be, you're gonna continue to go through these things. So, Danielle, tell us the story about the room, about the room.

SPEAKER_00

The room. So the reason I think we're both giggling is this has been the bane of my existence for like 18 months. I we I have this room, and now that I work remote, work from home, I've been trying to turn it into an office. And it's become this kind of like dumping ground. It's it's it's kind of off to a corner. I walk by it every day and the clutter drives me insane. So, what I learned is uh there's a stress hormone called cortisol. And when our bodies are stressed, it's created and it makes us very anxious. And it also makes it difficult to think clearly, it makes it difficult to lose weight because our body is in constant panic mode. And so once I started paying attention to my nervous system and realized it that I couldn't be on all the time, I couldn't just be going, going, going. That made me start to question other things. And one of the things I learned is that a messy room, in this case, my soon-to-be office, can actually be a source of stress just by walking by it. It might not be conscious, but your brain goes, Oh, I gotta do that. Oh, I gotta do that. Well, in the case of this room, it's like I'll get it almost ready. And then a couple days later, a bunch of stuff will get dropped off. And like right now, I'm preparing for a yard sale. So I had all these clothes in there and I'm just trying to get it organized. And I started asking myself, yeah, I got the garage done, I got my closet cleaned out. Why is this room causing me so much stress? And doing research and obviously learning from you, I think you've shown me why I can't get this room done. And it it does have to do with fear, but it's also an excuse because I know once this room is done, I don't have any excuses towards my success, towards what I want to be doing. Um, am I on the right track?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, no, exactly. That's exactly what it is. Uh I'll we're gonna go into some of that. Uh, I learned this when I was at the Think and Girl Rich Institute, and we talked about this. We we talked about this heavily because it is really a big part of why people don't ever become successful, why they don't ever reach their true potential. And you're you're completely right. That room is the reason you're like, well, when that room's done, then I can succeed, or I can do that podcast, or oh my gosh, I'll actually have an office where I can actually work out of that I might have my own business, or I might be able to write that book that I want to write, or I'll have a I'll just have a really clean space, right? And so we're we're we're blaming the room for why we can't get these things done. And so let's I we're I really want to go into these fears, and I I really want our audience, and I know, yeah, and I know Danielle's gonna listen to this too, and she has seen this and and she knows about this, but I really want our audience to really sit with this and ask ourselves, is there something I'm not doing right now in my life? And can I correlate it with one of these six fears? Okay, before I say this too, a lot of you will say, Brooke, I'm not fearful. I don't fear that. And what we're doing is we're not saying that it's actually a we're sometimes we can't categorize it as a fear because we're like, well, I'm not, I'm not fearful. It's it is the subconscious mind that is fearful and it's continuously in a loop feeding you this stuff, and you may not even be aware of it. But us having this conversation now might actually help you to become aware. So the first one is fear of poverty. And this is one of the top three that people normally uh suffer from. And really, all this is is if I if I do this thing, right? What if I lose all my money? What if nobody buys my product? No, what if nobody listens to me, right? What if I put all this work in this and and I don't get anything? So that is the fear of poverty. And I would say probably about 98% of the people in this world have this. This really stops you from taking action because you think, well, if I don't have the money, I don't know how many times I go into coaching and I ask people, why haven't you done this yet? And immediately they'll say, I don't have the money. And I'll say, I'm gonna be honest with you, money doesn't have anything to do with it. And I know that sounds really crazy in the world that we live in, but really it doesn't because you do have a lot of opportunity right in front of you that you're not even realizing. So let's move to number two. Number two is fear of criticism. This one is on the top three. What will people say? What will people say about what I'm doing? Will people make fun of me? Will people not listen to my podcast? Will people not read my book? Will people not show up for my event? Right? We're always asking ourselves, we're always questioning. Well, what if I do this? Will people say, well, that was dumb or that was cringe or that was that? And a lot of this is about perfectionism. And it's like, well, I have to have everything in line. I have to have everything perfect before I start.

SPEAKER_00

My ducks in a row.

SPEAKER_01

Yes, my duck, exactly. I have to have all my ducks in a row. I'm gonna tell you, your ducks are never gonna be in a row, in a row, and it's just not gonna happen, right? And you're never gonna be perfect because nobody is perfect and we're always growing. So it's impossible. Perfectionism is a joke, it's not real. You gotta get rid of it. Um, and yeah, I gotta have it all together before I start. It's just, it's just, it's not going to happen. And you gotta start, and you know what, Danielle, you did start. You did start before that room was ready. And the room is now getting ready and it's gonna be done very soon. I have I have a good feeling. And once that room is done, you'll see. Yeah, you'll see, you'll see how things will start to change once that room is done. So uh the next one is fear of ill health. This comes from the concept of well, if I push too hard, or maybe I'll burn out, I'll get sick, or for a lot of women, the excuse will be this will be, what if I can't be there for my kids? What if I burn out and I can't do it all? I can't do it all, I can't do it all. I'm here to tell you that you can do it all with balance and really somewhat of a strict, very strict schedule and maybe bringing in some help. So for moms that say, Well, I'll burn out and I won't have the energy, I won't have the time, then um also know that there is a way to sort of combat that too, with bringing in help and also mindset work and things like that. The next one is fear of loss of love. This one is huge. Um, if I do this, if I say this, if I confront this, will I lose my family? Will I lose my friends? What will they say? Will they still want to be friends with me? And I think something too that Danielle and I can just we're gonna touch on real quick is that as you grow, as you elevate yourself, as you really start to shed kind of that old you, you lose people. You do, you lose people, you lose friends. Some people will say things like, you know, oh, you're too good for your, you know, you're too good for us now, or you think you're too good for, you know, whatever, or you know, um, maybe a spouse will say, you know, I don't want you to grow. I like, I like how we are. I don't want you to go up on that stage. I don't, I don't want you to be looked at. I don't want you, there are so many things that happen with this and that we're we're so fearful that the people around us won't love us anymore because we're using our voice maybe and we're speaking out for the first time. And this one, this one is really huge for a lot of, I think, a lot of couples. This this can really be something that um can happen when one is feeling like maybe the other one is holding them back. Um, and so it this is really this is yeah, this is really a very, very serious um thing that I see when I go into homes. And then the next um two are kind of very similar. They go together, fear of old age. Am I old, am I too old to do this? I'm you know, I'm this, I'm that. Um, I want to really, real quick, I want to point something out that I went to dinner last night, uh dinner party with some friends, and I'm my friend of a friend of mine has a 95-year-old mom. 95. And if you saw her, you would not know she was 95. She it's vibrant, beautiful, says it how it is. I just I love her so much. She's like such this like bright light in my life right now. And her and I just have these really like cool conversations, and she just started her own channel just being real about being 95. And it has it in yeah, and it's so great to see that. And so I I want everyone to know that if you're using age as an excuse not to do something, it's not real. And I'm gonna tell you, if you are over 80, let's start sharing your wisdom with people. We need to hear your wisdom. Yes, we want to hear what you have to say. So start a channel, do a do a podcast, do a you know, Instagram or Facebook, whatever it is, do something. Share your knowledge with people. Um, the one that kind of goes hand in hand in this is fear of death. And as we get older, yes, we fear of death. But something else that is also, I think, very prevalent in the world right now is if I speak out, I may get hurt. I want to be very careful with which words I use here because I don't want to, I don't want to be, I don't want this to be banned off of YouTube or Shadow Banned. But but this has happened in history over and over again. And sometimes when we we see these figures that come out and they speak their minds, things happen to them. And this has happened, you know, Martin Luther King, you know, um Charlie Kirk, you know, lot, lots, lots of people. We can we can continue to name names that when they come out and they speak, um, things happen. And so this is this is really actually something, the fear of death. And so um, those are the six. And something else that Danielle found that was really interesting was from Sylvia Lackey Corcoran. She was a psychotherapist. Uh Danielle, do you want to share that one with them? Because I thought this was really interesting what she had to say, and it went really well with what Napoleon Hill says about these six fears, too.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, it was interesting. I I stumbled upon a LinkedIn page that had basically some different psychotherapists talking about this very topic. And so um this is um again, uh psychotherapist Sylvia Lackey Corcoran. And she said, fear of success is one of the most undernamed clinical presentations I encounter that she encounters as a therapist. We dress it up as perfectionism, we call it not ready yet. It's my famous go-to. We frame it as humility. But what it really is in many cases is a nervous system that has learned that being seen, being elevated, being the one who made it comes with a cost. And this is fascinating. Sometimes that cost is relational, like we just said, you lose people. Sometimes it's survival. Um, the body remembers even when the mind has moved on. And then what she tells her clients is this hesitation just before the win is not a weakness. I think we're told it's a weakness. And she says, No, it's not, it's your history asking for a conversation. And she says, have it, have that conversation with yourself, then keep going. You will adapt, you will rise, you always have. And it's kind of, I think I don't know if it's called the prisoner's dilemma, you know, where they're they're uh trying to dig and and find something and they quit not knowing they're almost there. And I think that a lot of the successful people I have followed in my life have come out and said, Yeah, I I've failed more times than I can count. But what makes a champion is you get back up. Like no one does it on the first try. But sorry, what what uh what do you think about that?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, no, and I I I want to say something, uh, a quote from Napoleon Hill that we have here. It says, most great people have attained their greatest success just one step beyond their greatest failure. And that is exactly what Danielle was just saying. That when you feel that intense feeling of I'm going to give up, I'm done, I've been doing this for too long. I just I'm tired, I'm burnt out. That is the moment where you have to keep going. That is the that is the clear indication that you are so close to hitting gold. And if you stop now, you're seriously going to regret it if you just don't keep going. So yeah, I love that. I think that was that's all, you know, tracks for what we're talking about. Um, I think next we, and and we want to leave you guys with something to some actional items that you can actually take away from this episode that you can do. Because we're not just here to talk. We want to actually give you some some things to use and uh steps to overcome achieve a phobia, I think is what we're calling that now. Yes, exactly, exactly. So something that we we usually talk about is number one when you're doing this work is really to know what you want. And Danielle can probably say, Burke has asked me how many times what do you want? What do you want? I want to co-host a podcast.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Boom, here we are. We're doing it, right? So, really ask yourself, what is it that I want? Um, second, we want to imagine that and visualize yourself being successful. And we talked about this on our last podcast. We really went over this heavily. Uh, so if you haven't listened to the episode, yep, use those senses. If you have not listened to the episode um before this one, listen to that because number two is exactly what we're talking about. All right, so the third is we're going to reframe failure. And a quote that I really like to use um when we talk about reframing what failure is is again, I know you guys, I say this all the time, Napoleon Hill, but this is this this quote, I'm telling you, write it down, put it on your fridge and listen to it because every time you want to quit, you have to remember this. It is every adversity, every failure, every heartache carries with it the seed of an equal or greater benefit. Now, what exactly is this? Well, what it's saying is to start asking yourself, what is this teaching me? And to know that failure is actually helping you more than successes. Success is easy, right? But to get through failure and to keep going, yeah, yeah, you know, and and and to to to go through failure over and over again. If you are not learning from failure, then forget about it. That failure is gonna circle back around a hundred times until you can until you learn from it. It's just a lesson, it's just teaching you something. Learn the lesson and you'll cycle out of it. So always think, okay, I didn't I didn't quite get what I wanted here. Let me go back and evaluate what happened. Let me evaluate myself and let's see what kind of benefit is this gonna may come from from what happened. And sometimes we don't know when it's happening, or even two or three days, why did this happen, right? Yes, usually it could be three days, it could be three months, three years. We do not know, but always I'm telling you, you'll look back on it and you'll say, Oh, okay, I get why I needed that in my life. I get why that happens. Right. And number four is huge. Stop overthinking, stop being a perfectionist, and start doing. Start taking action. Yep, that might again. Yep, exactly. And like Danielle, taking action on that room, right? Take the action. Even if you know, she took the action and the room didn't get finished the first time. That's okay. It's all right. Go back, take more action. Eventually, that room's gonna get done, and she's gonna be like, okay, great, it's done. And I told her the other day, I said, All right, now when that room is done, we are putting a ribbon, a red ribbon, across the doorway. And every time somebody goes in there, Dump something off in that room, they're gonna stop and look at that red ribbon and say, No, it doesn't belong in there. It belongs somewhere else.

SPEAKER_00

So um Well now that now that I've said it publicly, I I feel like I have to get this done. I mean, we're gonna have random people asking me if the room's done.

SPEAKER_01

Exactly. Exactly. And we do have a before picture. Yeah, we do have a before picture. Yeah. So we're gonna see the after picture and I and I'm gonna ask our audience to keep Danielle um accountable for this room because I think if we do that, it will get yes, it'll get done. And um so yeah, so that yeah, no, no, it's it's such, it's so great for us to share what we're going through because I'm telling you, someone's gonna listen to this episode and they're gonna say, Oh my gosh, this is so me. I am, I have a room or my car or that book or this or that that I haven't finished because of this this fear that I have, right? And so we've really got to get rid of this fear and we've got to embody more faith. And once we really start to embody that faith, I'm telling you guys, things just start to appear in your life. And I and also I would say that if if you find that you need help, get some professional help. Go get go get some help. Ask somebody for some help, you know, and say, hey, you know what? I I'm dealing with this and I want to try and talk with someone and break this down to to get over it, to get over this fear or this perfectionism or this burnout or whatever it is that I have. Really ask, ask for help. It will help so much. It will it really will.

SPEAKER_00

And I know I I've I've been in the position where I felt like I needed help, but I couldn't afford it. I wasn't in the position at the time to pay for it. But I feel like with the internet, there's so much, so many resources out there. You can there's mindfulness apps that are free, there's guided meditations. I mean, you can go to uh one of the AI platforms and ask them why I can not clean this room? Like what is is happening? And there's a lot that is absolutely free. But I think the biggest thing for me is I realized I was making excuses, and I'm not usually that type of person. And I'm making excuses, and who's sabotaging me? Me, I am. And so when you start realizing that you actually have a lot more power in your life than society tells you you do, every day is is an awesome day. Every day is is in a time for growth, a time for change. And I like getting uncomfortable now because usually when I get uncomfortable in a relationship, in a job, in any any type of situation, it means that there's a need for change. And so taking that discomfort to heart and saying, okay, I know this means I'm not happy. Um, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. And so I started asking myself, am I insane? Like I feel like I'm doing, I'm doing as much work as I can. Why aren't things changing? But it can't, it's not a one and done. It's not, oh, I thought it one time, so we're good. It's a constant mindfulness attitude that you have to just really start looking at your thoughts. Why do I feel this way? Why do I do the yeah, exactly? It's it's it's life-changing. I know I say that a lot, but it is. And I want other people to experience it because it's so awesome.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, it really is. It really is. Yes.

SPEAKER_00

So hopefully we've given you some fun things to think about, maybe some action items to take. I wanted to leave you with a quote by Dave Ramsey. And by the way, if you have not uh read his book, Total Money Makeover, it's a life changer if you're trying to get your finances in order. It's a really good book. Um, his his quote is success is a pile of failure that you are standing on. And I think that's so fantastic to just remember failure isn't failure if you learn a lesson from it. So keep learning those lessons. And we hope you have a wonderful day. Please like, comment, subscribe, and on behalf of Brooke and myself, have a great day.

SPEAKER_01

Bye, y'all.