1. You had a parent (often your father) who was very critical of your performance in school, sports, etc. He/She often called you stupid, dumb, inept, a failure, etc. He/She may have been abusive. (Your lifetrap may be linked to defectiveness or Abuse)
2. One or both parents were very successful, and you came to believe you could never live up to their high standards. So you stopped trying. (Your lifetrap may be linked to Unrelenting Standards.)
3. You sensed that one or both of your parents either did not care about whether you were successful, or worse, felt threatened when you did well. Your parent may have been competitive with you–or afraid of losing your companionship if you were too successful in the world. (Your lifetrap may be linked to Emotional Deprivation or Dependence.)
4. You were not as good as other children either in school or at sports, and felt inferior. You may have had a learning disability, poor attention span, or been very uncoordinated. After that, you stopped trying in order to avoid humiliated by them, (This may be linked to Social Exclusion.)
5. You had brothers or sisters to whom you were often compared unfavorably. You came to believe you could never measure up, so you stopped trying.
6. You came from a foreign country, your parents were immigrants, or your family was poorer or less educated than your schoolmates. You felt inferior to your peers and never felt you could measure up.
7. Your parents did not set enough limits for you. You did not learn self-discipline or responsibility. Therefore you failed to do homework regularly or learn study skills. This led to failure eventually. (Your lifetrap may be linked to Entitlement.)

The Failure lifetrap feeds on itself in such a way that the entire arena of work becomes a disaster for you. Your expectation of failure becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy. Here are many of the ways you sabotage yourself and make sure that you remain a failure.

Failure Lifetraps

1. You do not take the steps necessary to develop solid skills in your career (e.g. finish schooling, read latest developments, apprentice to an expert). You coast or try to fool people.
2. You choose a career below your potential (e.g. you finished college and have excellent mathematical ability, but are currently driving a taxicab).
3. You avoid taking the steps necessary to get promotions in your chosen career; your advancement has been unnecessarily halted (e.g., your fail to accept promotions or to ask for them; you do not promote yourself or make your abilities widely known to the people who count you stay in a safe, dead-end job).
4. You do not want to tolerate working for other people, or working at entry-level jobs, so you end up on the periphery of your field, failing to work your way up the ladder. (Note the overlap with Entitlement and Subjugation.)
5. You take jobs but repeatedly get fired because of lateness, procrastination, poor job performance, bad attitude, etc.
6. You cannot commit to one career, so you float from job to job, never developing expertise in one area. You are a generalist in a job world that rewards specialists. You therefore never progress very far in any one career.
7. You selected a career in which it is extraordinarily hard to succeed, and you do not know when to give up (e.g., acting, professional sports, music).
8. You have been afraid to take initiative or make decisions independently at work, so you were never promoted to more responsible positions.
9. You feel that you are basically stupid or untalented, and therefore feel fraudulent, even though objectively you have been quite successful.
10. You minimize your abilities and accomplishments, and exaggerate your weaknesses and mistakes. You end up feeling like a failure, even though you have been as successful as your peers.
11. You have chosen successful men/women as partners in relationships. You live vicariously through their success while not accomplishing much yourself.
12. You try to compensate for your lack of achievement or work skills by focusing on other assets (e.g. your looks, charm, youthfulness, sacrificing for others). But underneath you still feel like a failure.

Many of these patterns boil down to the issue of Escape: you avoid taking the steps necessary to advance yourself. Through your avoidance, you constantly twist events to reinforce your view of yourself as stupid, untalented, and incompetent.

Excelling in other roles is a way of compensating for the lifetrap. Men might excel in sports or seducing women; women might excel in their looks or ability to give to others. But, particularly for men, it is hard to develop an effective compensation. What does society value more in a man than achievement? A man who feels like a failure in his career is likely to feel like a failure as a person. Of course, this difference between men and women is changing as careers become more central to women’s lives.

You may be drawn to other roles or to partners who are successful to compensate for your feelings of failure. This is really another avoidance strategy on your part. It is another way for you to escape facing the challenges of achievement.

These compensations are fragile. They easily collapse, and yield to the feeling of failure. You need to deal with the issue of achievement more directly.

These are the steps to changing your lifetrap.