failure

A few days ago, I was reminded that many people are actually more afraid of success than they are of failure. These people often have a victim-mindset, which makes that they’re used to feelings of failure. Their familiarity with failure has formed habits and patterns which actually make their ‘failing life’ (as they see it) comfortable. Taking steps to get out of the dark and walk into the light then seems difficult and terrifying.

To be completely transparent: I was that person. In my late teens and early twenties, I felt like life what throwing sh*t at me all the time. So I decided to accept the darkness and be a victim. But in the long run, that didn’t make me happy and I decided to change.

Are you scared of the light too? Let’s find out.

You choose darkness because it’s easy

When you’re scared of the light, you have probably been living in darkness as long as you can remember. Many people who have a victim-mindset, have learned that the world is out to haunt and hurt them at a very young age. If this is you, you have learned that life happens to you, not for you (or independent of any value judgements about what you deserve).

Because so many sh*t has happened to you, you have learned that you probably deserve to be unhappy, and that you don’t deserve to be successful or fulfilled. You have secretly admitted to going wherever the dark events of life take you, and being the victim has become part of your identity.

But there’s one thing you refuse to see. You’re so stuck in your victim-role play, that you don’t see how other people have been through what you’ve experienced, and got out of it. You don’t see how one or many events that happened to you, are not about who you are, but who or what they are.

And that’s because being passive is easier than being active. Blaming other people or events for what your life has become, is easier than overcoming these people and events. Being pushed around by whatever life throws at you is hard and painful, but since you have become accustomed to it, it’s easier than taking the reins and designing your own future.

Because as long as you’re not acting on it, you can always blame someone or someone else for your failure.

You fear success because it takes effort and responsibility

This takes us to the next reason. If you’re scared of success, you’re probably scared of putting in the effort and taking the responsibility for you life – including the mistakes. If all your life, you’ve been the victim and not the author, you never had to take responsibility for the things that happened to you, or for the person you’ve become.

If there’s parts about your life or personality you don’t like, you can always point the finger. You can always say ‘Well I know I’m not smart, but I didn’t have a good education.’ Or ‘I’m really scared of commitment, but that’s because of my ex-boyfriend’ or ‘I’m really scared to drive, but my grandfather had an accident last year.”

See where I’m going with this? Being a victim always gives you an excuse for not taking responsibility for who you are, and saves you from putting in effort to become better.

You fear your dream life will also be disappointing

But even if you’ve overcome your fear of putting in effort and taking responsibility, there’s still a reason for sticking to the darkness. That’s because when you’re in a victim-mindset, you’re always ready to be disappointed. You’re not even doubting to be disappointed anymore, you know you will be. You’re basically already waiting for something to fail.

So even if you would take responsibility for who you are and start putting in effort into your future, there’s still a change that the outcome will not be what you expected. There’s a tiny chance that your dream life is not so great after all, and just dealing with that disappointment is already enough to not change anything at all.

Maybe deep down, you feel like you don’t deserve your dream life. Or maybe you’re still doubting your own potential. Whatever it is, it keeps you in the past and merely dreaming about the future. But with this mindset, you will keep failing because success isn’t even in the cards for you (by your own choosing).

What now?

So, if you (secretly) recognise yourself even partly in the person described above, you’re probably (somewhat) scared of the light. And I’m not judging. But if you want to change this, the first step is to start working on your self worth. If you deep down really believe you don’t deserve to be happy, this is where you should start. Read these blogs on why you’re worthy, how to find your worth and dealing with hardship as a kind of self care to see if it helps you.

Next you want to ask yourself why you’re holding on to this victim-mindset. How does it serve you? But really? I don’t want you to answer ‘it doesn’t serve me’ (because I know that 😉 ) here, but I want you to dive into the psychology of why you hold on to it. What does it bring you that you apparently still need in your life? Is it the fear of having to put in effort, taking responsibility, or disappointment? Or is it something else?

Then, you want to formulate something you also want really badly, something your victim-mindset keeps you from doing, on the opposite. What attracts you to the light? Why would you even consider stepping out of the darkness? Maybe you want to finally start that business, have a deep, healthy relationship or stop suffering in the more general sense.

Now, let’s literally build your successful future, so stepping into the light becomes more practical and comprehensible for you. There are many tools that can help you with this, but this blog and worksheet are a good place to start. You can read more about how I got out of the darkness in this blog, and this one can give you more perspective on the areas of life you might want to invest or become more succesful in, now that you’re in the light.

Thank you so much for reading this blog, and if I can help you deal with all this light-ness coming your way from now on, let me know! 😉

xx Coco

Lately, I have been dealing with a lot of feelings of doubt, incompetence, and failure about this blog and the Coco-Instagram. I’ve been comparing myself with more successful bloggers, creators, and guides. I saw every stagnation in my follower-count, every person in the field with more ‘fans’, as proof that I’m not doing as well as I should and have wished for. So something needed to change.

Of course, my initial way to change was to tell myself I just had to try harder, learn new skills, or put in more time and effort. If I’m not doing as well as other bloggers, there must be something they are doing that I’m not paying attention to. But then I dove a little deeper, did some soul-searching, and learned about the ‘growing-curve’ of the average blogger.

I learned that most of my ‘failing’ was just misplaced self-criticism. I learned that the average blogger takes about 3 years to build a loyal following. I learned that I was being irrational and too hard on myself, and that overall, I was doing a really good job for someone who is new to the field. Here are the insights that took me there.

If it was easy, anyone would do it

After starting this blog, I soon realised that the internet was not this place where you do your trick, and suddenly everyone is there to cheer you on and buy your products. It takes a lot of time and effort to find the people who see and need the added value that you’re offering.

And it takes even more time and effort to prove to them that your content and products are worth their investment. Realising this is hard and definitely not ‘fun’, but building your dream and adding value to the life of others simply doesn’t come easy. Just by trying, you are already doing more than many others.

I don’t have to be super successful right away

Sometimes, I forget why I wanted to start this blog anyway. I wanted to do what I love: writing and teaching people what I have found to be very helpful in my life. That’s it. I never needed it to be super successful right away, and I never thought it would only be fun to blog if many people read it.

Even if one person reads my blog – that’s enough and that’s already worth it. I just have to stay true to doing what I love, and don’t see it as ‘a job’ that I can fail at. Instead, I want this to be my hobby: an outlet, something fun.

I’m already making a difference

When we look at the purpose of this blog – teaching others what has helped me – there is no such thing as ‘failing’ or ‘being unsuccessful’ as long as I have readers or followers at all. And I do! I am so grateful for the handful of people who read every single blog I post.

I am so grateful for all the kind followers on Instagram, who like and comment to my posts. Going off of some of the reactions I’ve had so far (someone even said that this blog is what the prayed for!), I’m already making a difference in some lives. And that’s the greatest thing I could ever ask for, no matter how fast the platform grows.

Statistics are killing

One reason I am so focused on this growth, is because I check the statistics on my blog and Instagram almost daily. And while this is very helpful to know what my readers and followers are into (because I want that to lead the future content), it is also very discouraging, just by the way that the numbers are framed. Even when my follower count this week is only 4% lower than last week, the numbers are in red. Even when some pages are visited 200 times, next to the one that is visited 500 times, that’s a bummer.

And I need to keep reminding myself that this is the internet’s way of keeping us focused on the wrong things, essentially. Who said I want to grow all the time? Who said it’s a bad thing to not have many new followers today? When I started this blog, my goal was to inspire and help other women. NOT to grow my Instagram and blog as fast as I can! That’s the goal of the statistics (because they want me to be online as much as possible), not mine.

So, when I realised these things, I decided to do an assignment by Dr. Joe Dispenza. The trick is to write down every thought or behaviour that keeps you down, or makes you get stuck. Then, write down which thoughts or behaviour you’re going to replace them with, to ‘reprogram’ your mind, so to speak. Now, I won’t bore you with every single thing I wrote down, but I will say that the main thought is to stay true to myself, stop comparing with others and not get lost in lies about failure any longer.

Do you recognise these patterns of talking yourself down? How do you usually fix this way of thinking? Please let me know!