Fear of Success

I love to read the OffBeat Blogs every morning after checking my email (I became obsessed while planning my own OffBeat wedding).  This morning I found an amazing article on the OffBeat Home and Life blog written by Mallory Carlson.  It’s about her fear of failure and success as an artist, and I can definitely relate.  This is one of my favorite quotes because it points out how silly our fear really is:

“Fear is nothing more than an instinctual response to perceived danger. But, unless that life drawing session is filled with rabid velociraptors, there isn’t any real danger. I needed to change the only thing I could control: how I responded to it.”
Read the whole article, “Killing My Potential: I Have a Fear of Success”

When I was first starting this art journey I was afraid of everything.  I was afraid of talking to gallery owners, I was afraid people would hate my work, I was afraid I would appear unprofessional in some way, I was afraid that I would promise too much to someone and not be able to deliver.  I was afraid of failing, but I was also afraid of succeeding.  I was talking to my husband one and night and I confessed that I had a fear of success.  He asked me how I could be afraid of that and I told him that I was scared I would take on too much and not be able to keep up with the demands.  That I would agree to too much and that things would spiral out of control and I’d drop the ball on something important.  Basically I was afraid of succeeding so much that I’d fail.  I know.  I’m a mess.  Two years and four months into this journey I’m still afraid of things.  I still get nervous and worry, but I try to not let it affect what I attempt.  I freaked out before I attended my first open call art show and I was only one out of 100 artists, and now I’m able to put on a solo show by myself.  I was still nervous beforehand, but I knew that the nerves wouldn’t kill me.  I confront my fear by constantly pushing myself to try something new, something bigger, something different.  I don’t know if I’ll ever feel like I’m “succeeding” but hopefully I won’t be afraid if I do.

 

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