Why people are afraid of responsibility, how to get rid of fear

In the modern world, there are many opportunities to achieve success in life and no less dangers to our health, including psychological. Often you have to make difficult decisions and take responsibility for certain actions. The fear of not meeting the expectations of others can become a serious obstacle on the path of life. The fear of responsibility may not seem so scary at first. Don't believe this: people who are afraid to take a step forward are exposed to a lot of dangers. It is necessary to first understand what such fears actually are.

Fear of responsibility can cause serious trouble

Causes

Punishment in childhood for making independent decisions can lead to fear of responsibility in adulthood

Negative impressions transferred by a child during the period of socialization. The child may be punished for making a mistake, or severely criticized for making an independent decision, or the child is constantly forbidden to do everything.
Consequences of social stereotypes. A person understands that there are successful and unsuccessful people, and begins to classify himself as the latter.
Formation of persuasion and negative attitudes. Perhaps a certain decision was made earlier, which resulted in serious troubles and caused a number of consequences. These events create fear of taking on responsibility again.
Perfectionism or low self-esteem. A person has a constant desire for maximum results. Such an individual begins to compare himself with other people and becomes upset when he sees that he cannot achieve high results. This results in a constant feeling of anxiety, a fear of taking on any obligations.
Strong dependence on surrounding opinions, fear of being judged.

If there is a hypengiophobe in your environment

From all of the above, it follows that there is no need to treat people with fear of responsibility too harshly. Under no circumstances should you reproach a person. One of the consequences of a phobia is lack of self-confidence. This is the first thing that needs to be dealt with.

The surest way to solve this problem is to sit down and talk calmly. It is necessary to explain to the person what exactly he is doing wrong, and not to label him as “lazy” or “irresponsible.”

Taking a more serious approach to studying the problem, we can conclude that it requires a solution. To live a full life, you need to overcome your phobia. Its absence will help you move up your career ladder, improve yourself and diversify your life. In addition, this is an opportunity to be a completely “healthy” person. And health, as we know, is the most valuable thing. Understanding that we ourselves are responsible for our lives is the right path to happiness and spiritual harmony.

Main manifestations

Feelings of hopelessness may be one of the manifestations of fear of responsibility

How can you understand from the outside that a woman or man is afraid of responsibility? In fact, this condition has characteristic manifestations, they become noticeable in personal communication:

a person may experience depression or insomnia;
inability to reason rationally;
absent-mindedness, lack of concentration;
possible tachycardia;
the person is highly self-critical and engages in self-flagellation;
avoids situations in which uncertainty may arise;
has a hard time withstanding other people's criticism;
Even with the smallest difficulties, a feeling of hopelessness arises.

If a person with such a phobia is asked to make any decision, he may panic and become hysterical.

Phobias and their formation as a result of a traumatic event

It is also important to note that the level of anxiety can increase, either as a result of long-term adaptation to traumatic circumstances, as in the case of a child and his unbalanced father, as described above, or sharply. A person may become anxious as a result of a high-intensity traumatic event. And then a phobia may immediately arise if the event had a bright semantic connotation.

Let's look at another example. Let's say there was a holiday - a teenager's birthday. And for even more fun, the parents invited a clown to perform. Everything went well, everyone had fun. But suddenly one of the relatives became ill and as a result he died right during the holiday.

As a result of such circumstances, a teenager will develop an increased level of anxiety after understanding the situation. And also, as an addition to this, a phobia associated with clowns or, even worse, holidays will appear.

Of course, much will depend on what the adults who are significant to the child, in this case the parents, say and what they do. With a competent approach, if you have a certain calming conversation with the child, which will teach him to have a more philosophical attitude towards life and failures, phobias can be avoided. But working with anxiety will take much longer.

Possible consequences

Serious health problems may develop

In addition to the fact that a constant feeling of fear can prevent a person from developing normally, communicating, and sometimes even starting a family, a phobia will have a detrimental effect on his health in general. So, as a result of constant anxiety, stress develops, which leads to the occurrence of the following pathologies:

hypertension;
heart attack;
heart failure;
tachycardia;
gastritis;
ulcer;
stroke.

Formation of a phobia based on an increased level of anxiety

When a person is constantly tense and anxious, he subconsciously wants to somehow realize his anxiety. And if a convenient moment comes up, anxiety, being, as we found out, pointless, becomes objectified, choosing as an object, for example, trips on the subway or flights on an airplane. The person immediately finds many pseudological justifications for why it is dangerous to ride the subway or fly on an airplane and will sincerely believe in them.

It is worth noting that a phobia can form either as a result of some incident or almost out of the blue. But one thing will be unconditional - the level of anxiety of the owner of the phobia will be high.

Methods for getting rid of fear

Smile. Pretend you're playing a role

If you have the thought “I’m afraid of responsibility,” then you need to think about how to cope with this fear.

Method "under a microscope". You need to carefully examine the essence of your fear. Analyze the situation as a whole, pay attention to the smallest details. When you look at everything, you will be able to realize that in fact the problem is not as terrible as it seems.
"Flood". A person must mentally imagine that he is in a situation that requires him to make an emergency decision. At this moment, it is important to gather yourself, remain calm and think through possible ways out. Such training will help you cope with responsibility in real life with ease in the future.
“The whole world is a theater.” This method helps to get rid of unnecessary stress. Your task is to imagine that everything is not happening for real; you are an actor playing a certain role. This will make it much easier to make decisions and be responsible for something.

Ways to Avoid Fear

Like any phobia, such a fear can also be cured. This will require a lot of effort, but the result will be obvious. Modern medicine offers many solutions, but in severe cases, the first person to turn to for help is a psychologist.

But a responsible person can handle it on his own. The first step to solving a problem is understanding and wanting to solve it. After that, you need to start small.

Try to take responsibility for a small action.
Then analyze it and decide whether the fear is really as great as it seems.
The next step will be to gradually increase the degree of responsibility.
You should also try exercises to improve your self-esteem. Psychologists recommend a method such as meditation. For a meditation session, you can use oils from a variety of herbs to calm, for example: mint, St. John's wort, chamomile, valerian. You can supplement the treatment method with relaxing music and decoctions of the above herbs.
Using massages and herbal baths, you can relieve muscle tension, which will help you relax faster and approach problems more constructively.

It should be remembered that this is a rather labor-intensive process that requires systematic action.

Adviсe

Start small - take responsibility for walking the dog

To understand how to stop being afraid of being responsible, you can listen to the recommendations below.

Be optimistic. Everyone can make mistakes. This is not a reason to give up and be afraid to make responsibilities.
Treat early mistakes as an opportunity to gain experience, become wiser, and act differently in the future.
Correctly assess emerging complications and the risk of possible failures. Analyze your actions and identify mistakes.
If you have to make a decision, you first need to think it over and weigh the pros and cons.
Don’t put anything off until the next day, as your phobia will only get stronger. It's better to act immediately.
Don't leave any tasks unfinished. There is no need to retreat at the first difficulties. It is important to see everything through to the end.
Believe in yourself and your strength. Stop doubting your capabilities.
Train your will. Start by dealing with small fears.
Get enough rest. You need to be able to relax psychologically.
Don't panic, feel comfortable.
If you are trying to fight fear, you don’t need to take drastic measures right away. If you want to try to take responsibility, then you don’t need to start with serious things, take on something small. You can start by walking your neighbor's dog.
You must be prepared for the fact that at work, you will be required to have a certain level of commitment. It should be taken into account that some professions require increased responsibility, for example, working with money. Therefore, it is so important to be able to rebuild yourself, to convince that people can cope with the obligations assigned to them, you are no worse, you can also handle everything.
If you are offered help, do not push the person away.
Think about it, there were probably cases when the responsibility taken was justified, and everything ended successfully. There is no need to dwell on your failures.
Make sure whether responsibility really scares you or something else. For example, in a situation where you are about to move in with a girl or have a child, you may be repelled not by the obligation itself, but by the specific girl.

Now you know how to help if a person is afraid of responsibility. You need to understand that throughout your life you will have to take on certain obligations, which is why it is so important now to be able to overcome your fear. You must heal to the fullest.

How to stop being afraid of responsibility?

In severe cases, hypengiophobia can paralyze any manifestations of activity and make its carrier a social outcast.

10 ways to stop fear of responsibility from ruining your life:

Changing attitudes towards mistakes. Instead of self-flagellation, you should develop the habit of answering the questions “what was done well?” and “what can we do better next time?”
Stop putting off making a decision. Developing the habit of taking immediate action will significantly reduce stress and improve your quality of life.
Learn self-support. A useful skill will be the ability to praise and reward yourself for actions taken. It is recommended to introduce the practice of daily affirmations - repeated positive phrases.
Meditation, yoga. These practices relax the body as much as possible, relieve muscle tension, and relieve emotional tension.
Take responsibility more often, bringing what you start to the end. Inaction generates fears, energetic steps create confidence. Completeness will give an optimistic outlook on the situation and removes the problem of fear of responsibility.
Cultivate self-confidence. Healthy self-confidence encourages behavioral acts and reduces anxiety in conditions of uncertainty.
Complete rest, daily routine. It is necessary to give the body time to reboot in order to maintain rational thinking and an even emotional state.
Practice making commitments. Voluntary acceptance of responsibility reduces fear of problems and becomes a resource for confronting phobias.
Realize the irrationality of fears by sorting them into pieces. Writing out problems and associated fears will significantly reduce your anxiety level. Analyzing what is written to see if problems are unsolvable will help enhance the effect.
Work with a specialist. This method gives the most stable result. A professional psychologist-hypnotherapist will teach you how to cope with anxiety and not be afraid of responsibility.

Like any disease, hypongiophobia will not go away on its own. Gradually releasing irrational anxiety and making your commitments more challenging will help you overcome your fear of commitment. Working with a specialist, such as Nikita Valerievich Baturin, can correct a person’s self-image, teach them to accept their own imperfections and develop tolerance for failures.

Flood

Your task is to completely immerse yourself in the situation that is terrifying for you. Develop your tolerance for the stressful situation of taking responsibility, step by step in your imagination. It is necessary to repeat this procedure in different versions of its development and solution until it is resolved less emotionally and all actions are honed to the point of automaticity. Accordingly, in reality, when you find yourself in such a situation, you will be able to take on this responsibility.

Fear of not being successful

Men often feel like they have to succeed at everything: school, sports, video games, relationships, as lovers, parents and providers. Some people believe that if they fail in any of these arenas, they will definitely lose.

This particular fear can make it very difficult to move forward with your partner, no matter how amazing she is. At their core, this type of man is afraid that he cannot give a woman what she deserves or needs. His anxiety may be increased if he really has strong feelings for the girl. The more he is in love with her, the more he thinks that he will fail in some irreversible way.

Often such a man needs a “trophy” girlfriend who is sexy and incredibly attractive in order to “prove” to others that he is truly a successful person. He may or may not have real feelings for her, even if they have been together for many years.

Diagnosis of fear of responsibility

The main diagnostic method is a conversation with a psychologist. The specialist analyzes the client’s complaints and life history, his behavior and current condition. Let us remind you that, most often, people come with a different request. For example, a client complains about a job he doesn’t like, problems in his personal life, or a depressed mood in general. And already in the process, the psychologist understands that there is a fear of responsibility.

Note! The main criterion of a phobia is avoidance of responsibility. This can manifest itself in completely different ways. This is the difficulty of diagnosis.

Fear of trusting a woman

If a man had an authoritarian mother or a lover cheated on him in the past, he may avoid responsibility and provoke a breakup. He just vowed to himself never to become vulnerable again, and therefore does not fully open up to his partner. If he has had an unsuccessful marriage and a scandalous divorce with division of property behind him, he can directly declare that he will never marry again.

Why is fear of responsibility dangerous?

Hypengiophobia interferes with a person’s self-realization. Hypengiophobe wants to express himself, satisfy his desires, build a career and family. He wants to, but he can’t because fear is paralyzing. Because of this, a person experiences deep frustration, dissatisfaction with himself and life.

Most hypengiophobes blame themselves and engage in self-flagellation. This only makes things worse. Neuroses, addictions, depressive and suicidal tendencies, somatic problems - this is why the fear of responsibility is dangerous.

Important! Hypengiophobe does not know how to solve even minor life problems. He hopes that everything will resolve itself, but in the end the problems only accumulate like a snowball. Sooner or later, a limit comes, which is fraught with a nervous breakdown for the hypengiophobe.