Failure is discouraging. We all experience the fear of failure. What invokes it may differ. It may be from public speaking or a career change. Perhaps from a challenging project, or being faced with something new. The fear of failure is familiar to us. What about the fear of success? What if holding the trophy is heavier than throwing in the towel?
Let’s talk about it.
We all want to succeed. I sure do. When we put our hands to the plough we want to see the fruits of our effort. Success looks different to each of us. As a programmer, my idea of success is crafting software that is delightful to use, that makes life easier, that people love. It’s what I spend tons of time thinking about.
I have a side project. It’s coming along nicely. I don’t know what the exact path to success is and I don’t know how long it will take. It could be months, but it could be only weeks. And that gives me butterflies in my stomach. It’s scary. Failure is always on the table. Failure could be the result of some external factor, or I could simply give up. The cost of failure at this moment isn’t high. It amounts to the time, money and effort that has already been spent, and perhaps a few future opportunities. It sounds like a lot, but it’s actually not too bad. I don’t think my fear of failure is the only contributor to those butterflies. It sounds strange, but I think the fear of success is keeping me up at night.
Why do I fear success? Isn’t it what I’m after?
There are quite a few steps between a million-dollar idea and a million dollars. For an inexperienced person, like myself, those steps are vague and uncertain. I’ll have a great idea, think of a cool name for it, and then daydream about success. Everything in between the initial idea and it becoming a hit is blurry. It’s unchartered territory that I need to map out. There are difficult questions I need to ask and answer. There are things that I’ve never thought about that I need to think about.
A few weeks ago I came to a stark realisation. I didn’t know what to do if a hundred people signed up on my project. In theory, I wanted a thousand users. Pragmatically, I didn’t even know what to do with five. I had an “Oh, shit” moment. The practical, down-to-earth reality of succeeding is going to be stressful. But why?
Success is often public-facing, which means there are actual people involved. Shiver. For my project, those people are users. Having zero users is easy. I can take the server down whenever I want to. Backups are optional. Bugs are patient. If I don’t make any progress in a week then no one cares! That all changed with the first user. Even so, the ramifications aren’t as far-reaching. It’s easy to communicate with one person and apologise for any mistakes. With a hundred users? Or a thousand? I need to have my ducks in a row.
It requires a level of commitment that failure doesn’t. It’s not always easy to take a break from it or put it on pause. If you become famous, you can’t revert to being un-famous. If your youtube channel becomes popular then people expect more content. If your book becomes a best-seller, people want autographs or a sequel. I’m not saying that there is no going back, just that one might (for a time) live under the scrutiny of the public eye.
People have expectations. I have expectations for myself. I love that scene in Shrek where the kid asks him to “Do the roar”. Stakeholders, users, followers, fans, friends and family all have expectations. Do the roar. Do it well. Don’t disappoint. Most of these expectations are subtle (and quite reasonable), but they all contribute to a pressure build-up that can be hard to shake or ignore.
Phew. It’s a lot.
But you know what?
We learn to carry responsibility. We learn to handle the implications. We learn to manage expectations. We definitely learn a lot when we fail, but I reckon that we learn a lot more when we succeed. It asks more of us, stretches us and takes us to greater heights.
Here are a few things that I’ve learned in the past few months while working on my side project. Some of these things have been head knowledge for a long time, but I didn’t really understand them or put them into practice. They’ve helped me to get further down the path than I have before. I’ll try to keep it practical.
I have lots of ideas. It’s tempting to dive right in, or just sit on the idea forever without doing anything. We all know people that tell us about their grand idea year after year. I’m one of them. Planning helps bridge the gap between reality and the idea floating around in my head. It’s a simple way to get started, and quickly realise if the idea has merit or not. The goal is to define my idea, think about some of the details, and figure out the first few steps.
The quickest way that I get overwhelmed and discouraged is to take on way too much. My idea becomes a monstrosity that is so far off from the original idea. It helps to say no to anything that isn’t really necessary.
Once I start working on my idea the to-do list becomes eternal. However, I can only do one thing at a time. I’ve made the mistake of burning hours and hours on things that are very unimportant. It helps to ask what the highest value thing on my list is, and work on that.
I need to share my ideas with my friends and family. I feel stupid at first, but that bandaid needs to come off. The longer I wait, the more difficult it becomes, and the longer it takes to build up confidence. Practising on friends and family makes it easier to share my ideas with strangers. The goal is to get my ideas in people’s headspace and get them interested. Plus, you never know what opportunities may arise from someone hearing about your plans!
I assume that, like most things, success takes practice. Embrace the journey because there isn’t really a destination. It’s a scenic route with dangerous passes, breathtaking stops and rewarding milestones. As time goes by, our capacity will increase, and we’ll be able to shoulder the weight of success. We might even be able to help a few others along the way.
Thanks for reading!
