Fear of success?

I've turned over a bit of a new leaf lately. After some soul-searching about where I wanted to go with my practice I decided to make a concerted effort to market and sell my work more and redress the balance between admin and actually producing work, which can be a big problem when you're the only one responsible for getting it all done. All this seems to be having a positive impact, not only on managing my time more effectively with work but also in terms of a work/life balance.

However... I'm increasingly noticing that minor nagging anxiety that comes along with moving outside your comfort zone. Being more effective in getting work done means that I am getting closer towards being able to pursue the kinds of things that this is all supposed to be about; making a living from exhibiting/selling work and/or gallery representation. So what's stopping me? I have time allocated for these things and yet there seems to be an internal barrier to even getting started on them.

I was pretty sure that it wasn't fear of failure. Having been working as a practicing artist now for 7 years after graduating, I'm well versed in receiving rejection letters and I've been wished 'every success in my career' more times than I'd care to mention. Which brought me to the strange conclusion that it may actually be an unconscious fear of doing well. It sounds bizarre but after a cursory Google search I found that this could be a possibility. Reasons cited for this included fear of how others would react, worrying about the level of work or responsibility, or having to maintain success. These fears actually stopped people achieving, or worse, caused them to self-sabotage.

I thought this was an interesting discovery, particularly in relation to self-employed creatives, who often rely on their own reserves of motivation, discipline and funds, to maintain a career. Hopefully this will help me (and others) to shift that mental block.