October 18, 2025
If I’m being honest, I’m afraid of my potential. There’s something unsettling about success, not the shiny, Instagram-filter kind, but the real version that forces you to grow. Every time I start gaining traction or finding my rhythm, some part of me quietly starts looking for ways to mess it up.
I’ve missed opportunities, dragged my feet on projects, and overthought simple ideas until they suffocated. Not because I didn’t want them to succeed, but because deep down, success means stepping into something unfamiliar.
Failure, weirdly enough, feels safer. You can make peace with it. You can explain it. “It just didn’t work out.” But success? That’s terrifying. Because now there’s something to lose.
I think a lot of us are afraid of our potential because it requires constant confrontation. It means shedding the old versions of ourselves that survived on doubt, distraction, or playing small. It means being seen, and once people see you, they have expectations.
Maybe that’s what Jung meant when he said, “The brighter the light, the darker the shadow.” The more we grow, the more we expose the parts of ourselves that are still catching up.
I’m learning that the goal isn’t to stop being afraid of success. It’s to stop letting that fear run the show. Growth will always bring new shadows, but maybe that’s the price of becoming who we’re meant to be.
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So… do you think people are more afraid of their darkness or their potential?
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