It’s February, the second month, time for me to look at and reapply step 2!

I guess I might need to back track a bit and share where I am and what I’m up to.

Guess I need to start with step 1.

In January I looked at the things I still felt powerless over that were making my life unmanageable.

There were a few items still on that list, but the one that leapt off of it and hit me the hardest is how my fear of success/failure has trapped me into not succeeding in my life.

I looked at the ways it showed up in my affairs, how it was affecting my day to day life.

Here are some of the things I noticed:

• There is that “inner brat” that wants me to cry every time I encounter any challenge and then throws my hands up and quit. – It’s a neat way to avoid anything that might challenge me and a good way to make it look like I’m avoiding the pain failure by embracing the lie that if I don’t try I cannot fail.

The truth is if I do not try I have already failed. (That’s a leap ahead to 4^th / 5^th step stuff but that’s OK I’ve given myself permission to cheat a little as long as it for the better).

• I’ve got this Litany of Failure going in my head reminding me of every failure I’ve ever had.

Funny thing is that I do not hear anything in it about any of the successes I’ve had. I can pull a few quick conclusions about that but it would make good fodder for the rest of the steps.

• So many times when I find myself needing to take an action toward my success I m pulled into addictive behaviors like procrastination, perfectionism, putting the wants of others ahead of my needs, assigning blame…

So with a good eye toward what the problem is (fear of failure/success) and how it is making my life unmanageable I’m ready to look to step 2 and the Higher Powers that can help me get my butt through this one.