Why So Many Brilliant Designers Fear Success - And How to Break the Pattern

We often talk about strategy, systems, marketing and skills when we talk about why designers don’t scale. But beneath all that lies a far deeper, more stubborn barrier, one rooted not in the external world, but within ourselves.

This isn’t just intuitive or anecdotal. Psychology research over decades shows that when people - especially high-achieving women - stall in the face of opportunity, it isn't due to a lack of ability. What they’re resisting is fear, internal conflict, and patterns of self-sabotage known in academic literature as self-handicapping, impostor phenomena, and procrastination as avoidance.

• In large meta-analytic reviews, experts have shown that procrastination is rarely about laziness - instead it’s a form of self-regulatory failure, often triggered by anxiety, fear of evaluation, or emotional discomfort.

• Studies link self-handicapping behaviours (like avoiding full effort, postponing, underpreparing) to poor self-esteem, anxiety and fear of evaluation or failure.

• The so-called “impostor phenomenon” - where successful people feel like frauds and fear being “found out” - is strongly correlated with self-handicapping, avoidance of visibility, and reluctance to accept success.

In other words: many of the “blocks” designers experience at the level of pricing, visibility, or ambition, are often the symptoms of deeper psychological coping strategies, coping strategies that once served to protect them, but now prevent them from growing.

This blog post is my attempt to translate what the psychology research calls “self-handicapping” or “fear of success” into the language of design business, identity, ambition, and personal growth. It’s for those of you who suspect that the real obstacle to business success isn’t a bad website or weak marketing - but the part of you that still believes you don’t deserve to be seen, or is scared of what you think will happen when you are. 

If you’re ready to name the structural barriers and the internal ones, to look in the mirror and ask, “What am I really avoiding?” - read on.

The Hidden Cost of Success (That No One Warned Us About)

From childhood, women are conditioned to value:

• harmony over ambition

• modesty over visibility

• helpfulness over leadership

• likability over authority

• “not intimidating people” over owning the room

In practice, this means that even the most accomplished women carry an old internalised rulebook:

• Don’t be too much 

• Don’t overshadow anyone 

• Don’t talk about money 

• Don’t outgrow your circle 

• Don’t appear arrogant 

• Don’t be the woman people gossip about

Success - the real kind, the financially healthy, visible, authoritative kind - threatens every one of these rules.

No wonder women freeze at the edge of expansion.

They’re not afraid of failure. They’ve handled failure all their lives.

They’re afraid of becoming the version of themselves that success demands.

Self-Sabotage: The Quiet Architect of Staying Small

Self-sabotage rarely looks dramatic. It’s not blowing up your business or walking away from opportunities. It’s subtle, elegant - it can even sound rational.

Here's how it might manifest:

• “I’ll post when things calm down.”
• “I don’t want to raise my rates too quickly.”
• “I’ll take that project even though it’s not ideal.”
• “I’ll wait until my brand feels more polished.”
• “Now’s not the right season for visibility.”
• “I don’t want to make a fuss.”
• “I’ll start next month.”

Self-sabotage doesn’t attack your dreams - it gently delays them, a few days here, a few weeks there - and suddenly another year has passed.

Hello 2026. 

Why Residential Designers Are Particularly Vulnerable To Self-Sabotage

Interior design is uniquely high-risk psychologically because designers are:

1. Their own brand

Visibility is personal.

Criticism feels personal.

Raising fees feels personal.

2. Working in intimate domestic environments

There’s an expectation - spoken or unspoken - that designers should be warm, approachable, available, flexible.

Success challenges that.

3. Socialised to be service-oriented

Women, more than men, feel guilty for wanting authority or wealth in industries that revolve around caring for others.

4. Often self-taught entrepreneurs

Their identity as “a creative” can feel at odds with stepping into the role of powerful business owner.

The result?

A deeply conflicted relationship with success: one part of them wants it desperately; another part feels unsafe getting too big.

Recognising the Fear of Success (3 Signs You’re Feeling It)

This week on Instagram I shared the three self-tests I use inside Boardroom Bespoke, my annual, high-accountability programme for designers aiming to level up.

If these make you swallow hard, you’re in exactly the right place.

1. The Visibility Test

Anything in your business that involves being seen - speaking, posting, leading, raising prices - makes your chest tighten.

Rate your comfort (1–10):

• Posting original opinionated content
• Showing your face on camera
• Speaking as an authority
• Being interviewed
• Being recommended publicly
• Being known in your region
• Being known nationally
• Being the highest-priced designer in your market

Anything under a 7 is a bottleneck.

2. The Consequence Test 

You can easily imagine the benefits of success…but struggle to imagine who you’ll have to become to sustain it.

Which of these fears feel true for you?

• “People will think I’m arrogant.”
• “My friends or family might withdraw.”
• “Other designers will resent me.”
• “Clients will expect more than I can deliver.”
• “I won’t be able to keep up.”
• “I’ll lose freedom/time.”
• “I’ll outgrow people I love.”
• “I’ll become ‘too visible’ and attract judgement.”
• “I’ll have to maintain a version of myself I don’t trust yet.”

Any yes here is a sign of conflict between who you are and who you want to become.

3. The Threshold Test

There is a number (followers, revenue, project size) that you secretly believe “isn’t meant for you.”

What number makes you tense?

£___ per month

£___ per year

___ clients at once

___ followers

___ speaking gigs

£___ project size

This reluctance isn’t a sign of weakness.

It's a sign that your identity hasn’t caught up with your ambition - yet.

The Identity Shift That Makes Everything Else Possible

Growing a design business isn’t just strategy, it’s identity work.

Success requires becoming a designer who:

• commands fees without apology
• sets standards without hesitating
• holds authority without shrinking
• trusts their judgement
• tolerates visibility
• lets their ambition show 
• no longer dilutes themself to stay palatable

This transition - from the modest, careful version of yourself to the powerful, spacious, self-backed version - is the hardest emotional shift in the entire entrepreneurial journey.

It’s also the most liberating. It represents a threshold, with rolling fields of opportunity ahead. 

How We Break These Patterns in "Boardroom Bespoke"

Boardroom Bespoke exists for one purpose:

to take designers who are ready to rise a tier*… and make sure nothing - external or internal - stops them. 

Over 12 months, we work one-to-one:

• two deep planning sessions to define ambitious but achievable targets
• monthly meetings focused on strategy, behaviour change, and identity
• tracking patterns of self-sabotage and dismantling them
• building tolerance for success, visibility, money, and scale
• becoming the next version of yourself through the process of growth
• anchoring habits that support a higher operating level
• learning to lead your business instead of simply running it

It is rigorous, intelligent, supportive, direct, and deeply personal.

A year dedicated to levelling up changes in both your business and yourself.

*Read about tiers of practice here

If You’re Feeling the Pull to Grow, Pay Attention

When you begin to rise, you can feel it: there’s a friction between who you've been and who you're becoming.

Self-sabotage is simply the echo of the old self trying to keep you “safe.”

Success is the invitation to shed that version.

And the work of growing a design business isn’t just to build a studio you’re proud of -

but to step into a version of yourself who feels entitled to it.

A Footnote - My Personal Experience 

Over the past two years I’ve felt the subtle but unmistakable pull between who I used to be and who I’m becoming. Growth has required changes that aren’t always comfortable: giving up alcohol and sugar, reshaping my social life, protecting my time, and committing to a level of consistency I hadn’t reached before. These shifts have had an impact, and there have been moments when the cost of change was very clear.

But I don’t share this to be heavy, or to imply that growth is bleak. I share it because it is honest. There is always a price attached to becoming a new version of yourself, and acknowledging that makes the process less mysterious. For me, every sacrifice has been outweighed by the clarity, strength and sense of purpose I’ve gained along the way.

If I speak confidently about fear of success, self-sabotage, and identity change, it is because I have lived the reality of those transitions, not just observed them. And if you feel that same tension between the familiar and the possible, I want you to know it’s not a sign that something is wrong. It’s usually a sign that you’re growing.

The process can be demanding, but it is deeply worth it.