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Fear of Success or Failure

Writer: Deric Hollings
Deric Hollings
3 minutes ago
10 min read

 

As Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT) was formed by the late psychologist Albert Ellis, who reportedly developed the first cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) psychotherapeutic modality in 1955, this blog entry is part of an ongoing series regarding his book, Ask Albert Ellis?: Straight Answers and Sound Advice from America’s Best-Known Psychologist.

 

Now, consider the album What Has Been Blessed Cannot Be Cursed (2022), a collaboration between rapper Conway the Machine and music producer Big Ghost Ltd., that contains the song “It’s a Green Light”, on which the rapper states, “Either succeed when you try, or you fail.”

 

For context, success is defined as a degree or measure of succeeding—attaining a desired object or end, as in turning out well. Also, failure is defined as an omission of occurrence or performance, as in a failing (falling short) to perform a duty or expected action.

 

In “It’s a Green Light”, Conway the Machine expresses a false dichotomy when outlining an unproductive conditional belief that uses an either-or frame. Specifically, stating that either you will succeed when you try, or you will fail leaves little (if any) possibility for a third option.

 

For instance, suppose that I desire success at blogging. I currently have over 2,400 blogposts, which arguably makes me a successful blogger. However, hypothetically speaking, person X criticizes this claim to success by accurately noting that each of my posts receives limited views.

 

Now, factually speaking, I’m able to determine that the overwhelming majority of my blog entry views are attributed to nonhuman entities (e.g., artificial intelligence; AI). Imagine that person X also knows this and alleges, “You’ve failed at blogging, as virtually no one reads your posts!”

 

For the sake of illustration, suppose that I didn’t maintain a healthy perspective. In this example, I don’t healthily conclude that I (1) succeeded by merely having started a blog, (2) succeed by continuing to write, irrespective of viewership, or (3) fail by not having many viewers overall.

 

Adopting person X’s worldview, I’d develop fear, which the American Psychological Association defines as “a basic, intense emotion aroused by the detection of imminent threat, involving an immediate alarm reaction that mobilizes the organism by triggering a set of physiological changes.”

 

Now, REBT uses the ABC model to illustrate that when an undesirable Action occurs and you Believe an unhelpful narrative about the event, it’s your unfavorable assumption, not the event itself, that causes an unpleasant Consequence. This is known as distress or disturbance.

 

Noteworthy, with virtually any undesirable Action that occurs, it’s your unfavorable Beliefs which cause unpleasant distress or disturbance (Consequence). Given this framing of self-distress and self-disturbance, it’s worth noting that one REBT source states (page 71):

 

REBT conceptualizes [distress] as healthy even though it is intense. Other approaches to therapy have as their goal the reduction of the intensity of negative emotions. They take this position because they do not keenly differentiate between healthy negative emotions (distress) and unhealthy negative emotions (disturbance).

 

Now, REBT keenly distinguishes between healthy distress and unhealthy disturbance. Healthy distress stems from your rational beliefs about a negative activating event [Action], whilst disturbance stems from your irrational beliefs about the same event.

 

Complete elimination of distress is highly unlikely in an impermanent and uncertain world, wherein people conceptually suffer, struggle, and battle with, or merely experience hardship. Still, individuals often make matters worse for themselves by disturbing about such instances.

 

In particular, there are four predominate irrational beliefs which people often use to distress or disturb themselves: global evaluations, low frustration tolerance, awfulizing, and demandingness. When contemplating these unproductive scripts, think of the acronym GLAD.

 

Additionally, from a psychological standpoint, people distress or disturb themselves using a Belief-Consequence (B-C) connection. Of course, this isn’t to suggest that in the context of the naturalistic or physical world there is no Action-Consequence (A-C) connection.

 

Regarding an A-C connection, I post blog entries (Action), as doing so renders me a blogger (Consequence). Concerning a B-C connection, if I were to unhealthily adopt person X’s worldview, then I’d cause my own negative, but unhealthy fear of success or failure.

 

Person X notes that AI constitutes my largest blog viewership (Action), I Believed, “I’m worthless as a blogger [G] and can’t tolerate a lack of human viewers [L], as this is dreadful [A], because I should have more human readers [D],” and I’d then cause my own fear (Consequence).

 

Addressing how people upset themselves with unhelpful attitudes, the ABC model incorporates Disputation of unproductive philosophies of life in order to explore Effective new beliefs. Whereas rigid beliefs cause self-disturbance, flexible beliefs result in an un-disturbed condition.

 

In actuality, I use the Effective belief, “I’m writing blogposts for myself, so what does it matter if people don’t read my entries?” as I cause my own healthy indifference regarding critiques by the persons X of the world (Consequence). Concerning this matter, Ellis stated (page 31):

 

The REBT method of dealing with people who have a fear of success is, first, to find out whether they really fear succeeding. Very few people actually do.

 

Behind their “fear of success,” they usually have a fear of failing in some way. Thus, they may, because they succeed at certain tasks, fail to keep succeeding; fail to succeed well enough; fail to please others who are jealous of their success, etc.

 

So, they really fear some “horrible” consequence of succeeding. REBT shows them that, yes, there are often unfortunate consequences of success, but that these are merely inconveniences and not “great dangers” or “horrors.” Usually, the hassles that go with succeeding are mild – and are well worth it!

 

Regarding fear of success or failure, often due to false dichotomies when outlining unproductive conditional Beliefs which use either-or framing—similar to that used by Conway the Machine in “It’s a Green Light”, it’s important to know that Beliefs cause this type of fear (Consequence).

 

Personally, I’ve attained success as the world’s foremost hip hop-influenced REBT psychotherapist by merely starting a blog. If the persons X of the world choose to criticize me or critique my efforts as relating to failure, then so be it! They’re entitled to their opinions.

 

Moreover, nothing but opinion is the cause of a troubled mind and uneasiness. If I have fear of success or failure, then my own opinions are the cause of this unpleasant outcome. Therefore, I simply adjust what it is I’m telling myself. And do you know what? You can do the same!

 

If you’re looking for a provider who tries to work to help understand how thinking impacts physical, mental, emotional, and behavioral elements of your life—helping you to sharpen your critical thinking skills, I invite you to reach out today by using the contact widget on my website.

 

As the world’s foremost hip hop-influenced REBT psychotherapist, I’m pleased to try to help people with an assortment of issues from anger (hostility, rage, and aggression) to relational issues, adjustment matters, trauma experience, justice involvement, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, anxiety and depression, and other mood or personality-related matters.

 

At Hollings Therapy, LLC, serving all of Texas, I aim to treat clients with dignity and respect while offering a multi-lensed approach to the practice of psychotherapy and life coaching. My mission includes: Prioritizing the cognitive and emotive needs of clients, an overall reduction in client suffering, and supporting sustainable growth for the clients I serve. Rather than simply trying to help you to feel better, I want to try to help you get better!

 

 

Deric Hollings, LPC, LCSW


Photo credit, Designed from Magnific, fair use

 

References:

 

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