Afraid to lose: When everything is a competition

You may think you suffer from competitiveness when everything in your life is a competition, but it may also be that you are incredibly afraid of losing. Therefore, in order not to lose, you go for the win.

In this blog article, we take a closer look at when you are afraid of losing, possible causes and what you can do about this fear.

Everything is a competition

If everything is a competition, this can have multiple causes. Research shows that if your parents pushed you very hard to be able to get a certain job, i.e. study hard so you can become a lawyer or a doctor, then you can "suffer" a lot of competitiveness in your later life.

Children of parents who care often enter the competition. Even when the chances of winning are slim. Incidentally, this is more common among parents of lower socioeconomic status[1].

So in this case, the competitive spirit may also have to do with fear of losing love from your parents, for example.

A competitive drive can also be a way to mask the fear of failure. This can be so extreme that many elite athletes who actually reach the top do so primarily because they are severely affected by the fear of failure[2]. This is also not at all good for their well-being.

However, most people don’t become elite athletes because the fear of losing can also lead to other behaviors. For example, if you end up losing a lot, this can lead to depressive symptoms. So sometimes it feels better not to compete at all if you’re afraid of losing[3].

Fortunately, hypnosis can be very helpful in eliminating limiting beliefs about situations where competition is a factor[4], so you can participate in a relaxed manner in situations where “winning” in some form is important.

If everything feels like a competition and you are very afraid of losing, hypnosis can help in several ways. In any case, it is good to find out where this feeling comes from.

This is often done through regression . If someone then realizes that it is indeed due to how their parents spoke about performance and the importance of achieving, they can then work with their inner child to transform these kinds of limiting beliefs—inherited from their parents—into something that allows them to no longer mind failing or losing.

Separation Anxiety

Fear of losing, then, can include fear of losing love. This can start with the fear that parents won't love you if you don't at least get to go to VWO, for example.

If your parents divorced when you were young, or if even one of your parents died, this can also cause you to have a lot of anxiety about losing people. This can make you depressed and can affect relationships you have with other people in your life, such as your friends or romantic partner[5].

You can also really suffer from the fear of losing someone. This is often a characteristic of people who suffer from borderline syndrome[6]. This does not mean that if you have this fear, then you have borderline.

In fact, the same is true for people with bulimia. The anxiety is then eaten away, so to speak, instead of being dealt with in a constructive way[7].

So if you're afraid of losing someone, it certainly doesn't mean you have bulimia or borderline. After all, all cows are mammals, but not every mammal is a cow.

If you’ve developed separation anxiety due to a traumatic event, such as the death of a parent, hypnosis can also be helpful in overcoming this issue.

The traumatic event can be given new meaning by giving it a place in the bigger picture of your life. In the process, acknowledging that there is nothing you can do about it can also provide a great deal of relief. Also, something positive can actually be linked to the deceased so that you don't just think about death, but rather positive and enjoyable experiences you had with the person[8].

In this way, it is easier to live with the idea that it is better to have known love and lost it, than to not know love at all.

And can shift the focus to situations where there was control, such as having done something nice for one of your parents when everything was going.

Self-hypnosis can also play a role in coping with loss and overcoming separation anxiety.

Afraid of losing job

The fear of losing can also be linked to your fear of losing your job. If you’re afraid of being fired , this can cause a great deal of stress, and some people respond by trying extremely hard and pushing themselves far beyond their limits.

If you’re unsure about your job, this can lead you to quit sooner than necessary. This can also take a toll on your well-being, even though that’s not always necessary[9].

What’s often needed to reduce this anxiety is to build more self-confidence —more confidence that you’re good enough to do your job, or, if that’s not the case, more confidence that you’ll “somehow” manage to find a new job.

This is something hypnosis is incredibly helpful for. For example, hypnosis is also used to help people return to work after being out of work for any reason.

In this case, hypnosis also helps boost people's self-confidence[10].

Fear of getting sick

Especially when you are a little older, you may suffer more from health anxiety. For example, you may suffer from anxiety about:

1. Memory Loss
2. Falling
3. Serious illness and death

This may result in avoiding certain activities, so at least you don't have to fear falling or being infected with some virus.

The annoying thing is that fear of memory loss can actually lead to more memory problems[11]. It's like a self-fulfilling prophecy.

The fear of falling, in turn, is often linked to the loss of muscle and bone density that comes with old age[12]. However, you can do a lot about that yourself. For example, I myself exercise regularly precisely to maintain muscle mass.

With hypnosis, you can also increase your sports motivation.

Fear of serious illness and death was especially prevalent among people who had a small social circle or experienced little social support[13]. This is an understandable fear, but again, there is much you yourself can do to still have some form of a social life.

Research shows that hypnosis also works well for fear of death. The studies have also worked with the ideas of Milton Erickson[14], which are also very important in the training of the Hypnosis Institute Netherlands.

So being afraid of losing can actually refer to all kinds of fears. Many fears are based on wrong or limiting beliefs. A hypnotherapist helps to identify those limiting beliefs and change them to beliefs that allow you to overcome your fears.

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