When I was a teenager, somebody accused me of self-sabotaging my own success. After a couple self-help books and some introspection, I realized that I actually have been setting myself up for failure. I was hard wired to fear success. As long as I was constantly aware of this, and overrode these natural tendencies, I could manage ok. Over the years, constantly pushing ahead and committing to success has done me well. Even my catastrophic failures have turned into funny stories and life lessons.

I was wondering how often this fear of success finds its way into our board games. Even in the Magic Circle of the game group, people may be reluctant to leave their comfort zone, or to stand out too much. It takes more than a little effort to commit to a successful path, which sometimes involves responsibility to your teammates, or even opens a player up to higher expectations in their future performance. The primary goal of a board game is to have fun, so I can never fault anybody for laying back and not taking things too seriously, but I wonder if a fear of success could cause a player to play sub-optimally, or even make some serious mistakes.

I would love to hear your thoughts on this, or some personal experiences which might be contributed to a fear of success. Feel free to comment, even if you think I am way off base with this oddball theory.