He Who Fears the Heights Must First Climb Within

If you want to get to the top, if you want to reach your potential, if you want to break through the ceiling, you have to realise that that ceiling is self-imposed.

You have to see that what is preventing you from achieving is the anchor that you’ve tied around your waist or the concrete you’ve poured into your shoes.

What is the self-imposed ceiling, the anchor, the concrete? What is it literally? It’s down to three things. First, it’s your own fear of success: the fear of what it takes to get success, or the fear of what happens when you’re successful.

But if everyone values success, why would anyone fear it?

When you’re young, you are naturally optimistic. There’s no tree you can’t climb, no wall you can’t jump. You’re superhuman in a way, and that’s the power of optimism. There’s no goal that you really want that you can’t accomplish.

Some of us were really living that positive life, but then our parents lost their job, or we lost a boyfriend or girlfriend, or we missed out on an opportunity we worked really hard for. We start to question, am I going to lose more things that I love or achieved?

That’s why it’s so important to have parents to encourage that optimism. But some of us didn’t get that support. We got pessimism and doubt masquerading as protection, and sometimes projection, but in reality it was fear, and we started to buy into that fear whether we wanted to or not.

That’s how you grow up to become a proud, card-carrying realist. In reality, you were once an optimist who got massively disappointed or let down too many times and became a pessimist. But then you realised that that had a negative connotation, so you decided to mask it by being a realist.

Here’s some nuance. If a situation really is negative, then call it what it is. In that context, you’re being honest and a realist. But that’s the thing about being a realist. A realist isn’t a paradigm. It’s just looking at what is and calling it what it is.

Being an optimist or a pessimist are the paradigms and perspectives that one lives through. You are generally seeing the possibility for success or the possibility for failure. Both possibilities exist. Both wolves exist, but of these two wolves, which one are you feeding?

The wolf of success leads to success. The wolf of failure leads to failure.

I know that sounds ridiculously obvious, but if it really was, people wouldn’t be confused as to why they want success but block themselves from it.

It’s because success is a good thing, but the consequences of going for success or the consequences for achieving success might be bad. That is why people don’t go after what they want. It’s the contradictory feelings associated with success that confuse us.

Here’s another thing that sounds obvious: you can’t achieve success from a paradigm of negativity. In fact, the only way to do this would be to do a bunch of negative and harmful things in order to get success.

Harassing/abusing people while livestreaming, spreading misinformation, overworking employees, extortion, killing competitors, rage-baiting, lying to investors, lying to yourself. These are the common ways people do it these days.

We’ve all seen their success, but we’ve also seen their downfall and how trouble follows them like the plague. They can’t shake it. How can you shake it when you’re the source of it?

These people fear the heights but they refused to climb within. They could’ve been successful without the negativity, but they believed that they had to do it as if they were sacrificing their morals on the altar of evil. They basically sold their soul to the devil and wonder why he doesn’t stop calling.

Then we have other people who are negative, but they don’t go around hurting others. They just never do anything to achieve their dreams. They have the dreams but they do not go within to see why they don’t actualise it.

Another obvious point: fear is scary. If we’ve been programmed to move away from what we perceive as dangerous, that is true whether the threat is external or internal.

However, the perceived threat may not be a threat at all. But because the paradigm is negativity, as far as they’re concerned, they’re just keeping themselves safe. Safe, but unhappy, so maybe not that safe after all.

In the same way someone let you down, now you’re the one letting yourself down. You don’t hold yourself accountable in the same way you did for your parents, partners, friends, or God.

Despite all of this, he or she who fears the heights must first climb within. If you really think something bad will happen if you go for success or if you achieve it, you need to investigate it by asking yourself, what would I feel would happen if I went for what I want?

Do not censor your answer. Be honest. The details will vary from person to person, but the answer will likely be failure. This is the second reason we put limits on ourselves.

All this avoidance and overcompensating is down to the fear that you will fail. But because failure is the price you pay for success, you have to see failure as necessary because it teaches you what you need to know to be successful.

People go, “no thanks!” and go back to the safety of what they know. But they always return. It may be human nature to avoid danger but it’s also human nature to achieve.

The more you face your fear, or in other words, the more you give yourself the grace to feel the fear, the easier it becomes to dismantle the beliefs that give rise to the fear. This is how you hold yourself accountable, and then you realise that optimism is the path to success.

So we started off by realising that the fear of success revealed itself as really the fear of failure, but for some of us it gets even deeper and what is revealed to us is the third and final reason we put limits on ourselves: the fear of optimism.

Do I dare believe again? I don’t want to be seen as a fool. I remember when I did that and I failed! I remember when I was a kid and they promised this and that, but it never happened. So I decided to not trust anymore and it made the disappointment easier to handle.

And that’s a fact. Being negative does prevent the disappointment from stinging.

Until it doesn’t anymore. Being negative to yourself now means you sting yourself everyday.

Now, as an adult, you make the decisions and you direct your life far more than you did as a child. But even as a child or teenager, there are things that are only in your control, like grades and different kinds of relationships.

Optimism, seeing the possibility and path for success is the perspective that leads to success. So as painful as you think it could be to face the fear of optimism, it is that fear that prevents you from believing in yourself.

The more you give yourself the grace to feel the fear of optimism, the easier it becomes to decide to live in optimism and the easier it becomes to see the path of success.

True optimism isn’t merely believing that you will achieve this specific dream which will cause you to be happy. True optimism is knowing that regardless of what happens, you will live a good life.

Your biggest dream is often just a stepping stone to your greatest potential. This is why when people achieve their goal, they say, “Now what?” They’re ready to go again because there’s more ground to cover on the path of success.

Just make sure you don’t run yourself into the ground. Rest when you need to.

And lastly, optimism doesn’t blind you from seeing negativity. That’s why they make the distinction and call it blind optimism. But weirdly enough, pessimism almost always blinds you from seeing optimism.

Why is that? It’s because fear wants you to solely focus on the escape route, whereas optimism wants you to see the path to success and the dangers that threaten it.

One perspective gives you a narrow view. The other is panoramic.

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This post was previously published on medium.com.