Fear of success in handwriting
“I never realized this is what I was doing to myself!” said Mr. Shah (name changed). Mr. Shah was a pleasant gentleman in his late 40s whose handwriting I was analyzing.
From what I could see around me, he seemed to be running a decent-sized business and it was especially difficult to tell him he had a “fear of success” considering his office was buzzing with activity and everything seemed well.
However, in my experience with handwriting analysis, I know better than to doubt a formation that is consistent in the writing. Mr. Shah had in his writing an downturned ending to his y’s and g’s as shown in the picture below. This stroke is called the “fear of success” in handwriting analysis/graphology.
What is fear of success?
“But why would anyone ever be afraid of success?” I recall my mind retorting when we were being taught this stroke and at that time it seemed like the most unlikely thing to come across, but here I was sitting face to face with a seemingly successful person having this stroke in his sample.
As we discussed further, Mr. Shah went on to tell me how at so many points, he withdrew from proceeding with a project or a plan which would have otherwise been profitable to him.
His gut feeling was that he should go ahead with it, but somehow before it would reach fruition, circumstances cropped up in such a manner that he had to withdraw and this, as he thought more deeply, seemed to be a pattern in his life.
At first, he was only amused at “this whole handwriting analysis” thing, but with this realization, the whole air changed and I had all his attention.
I went on to ask him if he remembered any instance/instances in his childhood when his parents went out of the way to cheer him up after he lost at anything like an exam, match, game, or any such situation that he would have perceived as a failure or felt dejected about.
Fear of success in handwriting
Fear of success is revealed by sudden downturn in g and y loops
This seemed likely as from his writing, I could make out that he was quite pampered as a child. At first he was quite blank, probably still digesting the impact of this finding, but after a brief period of silence, he started narrating how his parents could never see him fail.
They felt miserable when that happened and they would immediately start making plans to “divert” his mind and see that he did not feel bad. That sometimes meant going for a movie, an ice-cream or doing something that he liked.
Well, what happened unfortunately was that subconsciously, Mr. Shah started mapping failure with getting more attention from his parents and having a good time. It was more rewarding than success, which was acknowledged but not “celebrated”!
Fear of success: It’s necessary for parents to teach their children how to handle failure
Actually it is true of many parents, isn’t it? In today’s competitive world, we cannot hold back or protect our children from having to enter competitions, and ultimately, not everybody is a winner.
Fear of success: Its origin in childhood
Teaching them to handle failure is such an important aspect and quite painful. If we are too harsh, they end up getting afraid of failing, develop a low self-esteem, and it affects their growth negatively.
However, at the same time, we have to be careful not to overdo our bit shielding them from failure either.
We have to see that failure should never hold more pleasure than success. We have to allow them to introspect what caused it, how they can improve and win the next time, and help them develop a healthy attitude towards challenges. Failing at something and being a failure are two very different things and we have to ensure they know that.
“So, do you have a solution or is it that only the problem can be detected?” he asked. Over the next 15 minutes, I explained to Mr. Shah how to correct this aspect in his writing and some other changes in his overall writing. He was very happy and we parted with him saying, “I wish we’d met earlier!” and he promised to implement the changes and practise regularly.
Fear of success also shows some guilt
By the way, this is not the only reason one would develop such a stroke though. At times, people find that fear of success takes them away from their loved ones or estranges them from the people they like.
One could also feel guilty being successful when others in the family are not doing as well. Here also, success is associated subconsciously with a bad feeling and it causes the person to not want to be successful.
At first, my aim of learning graphology was limited to self-improvement and probably to help my son write the right way. As I delved deeper into the subject, I realized the tremendous value it offers for every individual who writes in English!
Graphology helps us have a peek into our subconscious programming that we have unknowingly recorded over years. There are so many things that are conducive to growth and there are many that hold us back too, like a person could be overly self-conscious, have a very low self-image, and so on.
Knowing the strengths and weaknesses and also having a way to correct the weaknesses is what graphology offers us.
This experience of analyzing Mr. Shah’s writing and detecting such a stroke, helping him change it filled me with a deep sense of satisfaction as there aren’t any other tools that I know of today that would have helped him detect that! It filled me with a new zeal to pursue practising graphology more seriously.
Disclaimer: One element of handwriting may be analysed at a time, but always look at the entire handwriting sample before arriving at any conclusion.
