Thread: Fear of Success
View Single Post
Old 06-17-2009, 06:13 AM
  # 1 (permalink)  
tyler
Not all better, getting better
 
tyler's Avatar
 
Join Date: Feb 2002
Location: The Beautiful Inner Banks of NC
Posts: 1,702
Fear of Success

Does anyone else struggle with this. I've identified it as a problem for me. I will often take projects to the 98% completion mark and then abandon them. Some examples...When in college I finished all of my classwork, but failed one class my final quarter. It was an elective, my major and minor were complete. I was very busy at the time holding two jobs, a fulltime internship and trying to carry 12 hrs of classes, something had to give. I "walked" for comencement, got my little empty diploma folder (You don't get the real thing for a couple of weeks) and figured I'd just pick up an easy elective next quarter and be done with it. One quarter turned to two turned to 3 years. I was moving out of the area, I decided I needed to do something. I went to the admin office to see what I could do. Since I had been gone the school had gone from quarters to semesters, and low and behold, somehow in the transistion I no longer needed to take any classes!! All I had to do was pay $10, fill out an application for graduation and I was done!! You'd think that would be it, but Nooooooo, I waited another 2 years until I decided to get out of radio (where a degree doesn't really amount to much) and work in the real world. Consequently my diploma dates 1998, even though I took my last class in 1992!!

I also make it a point not to count days of sobriety. I have a rough idea, I'm about 30 days clean from pot and a week or so sober. I've got a ton of "white tags" from NA, but only one orange (30 days) and that was after spending 28 in rehab, I made it to 42 I think. I made 28, 26, 27 days many times, but could never make it to the big 30.

I spent 600 class hours and $8000 getting a massage therapy certificate. It is one thing that I find truly rewarding. That time in school really helped me get intouch with my "spiritual side". The "healing" aspect of massage is very rewarding to me. However in order to practice, I have to be licensed. In order to be licensed I have to pass my boards. In order to pass those I have to study the material. I waited almost a year after finishing school and made a half hearted attempt at taking the test and failed miserably. You only get 3 shots at taking it before you have to go back and take more class work. While I'm not necessarily sure that this is something I want to do fulltime, I would like to practice it professionally at least on a part time basis. I'm currentlly unemployed after moving to a new area, perfect time to spend studying, yet I find time to do everything but study.

I could go on and on, but I think ya'll get the idea. The only thing I can figure is that deep down I feel that if I succeed, then success will be expected of me, and I won't be able to meet those expectations. I know it is something I need to work on as not only does it effect my career, but my recovery as well.

Thoughts???

Thanks for listening.
tyler is offline