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Six barriers to successful living

January 5, 2008 – 5:23 pm

Why haven’t you achieved your potential? Why are others achieving more and better results than you? What’s holding you back? Simple questions – not so simple answers. Here’s a short list of obstacles that prevent you from achieving greatness:

1. You are scapegoating through life.

You have convinced yourself and everyone who will listen that all of your problems are caused by someone else or something else. Everything (at the very least, most things in your mind) are beyond your control.

Man, it depresses me just to write this stuff down. I can’t imagine how someone who truly believes this crap, must feel.

Napoleon said,

“I create the circumstances that affect me.”

This is true. It’s a fact, “stuff” happens to everybody – You are not special. At least, not in that sense. The universe is not picking on you. Crap hits everybody. Make up your mind to deal with it and then deal with it.

Accept responsibility for your actions or more likely your inaction. Decide that you are not going to take it anymore. Then don’t take it anymore. The simple fact that you are reading this is evidence that you are searching for direction. Here it is: You have every right to be successful in life. Make it your quest to soar above your present situation. Once you make a decision and begin to search for answers, the help you need will be revealed.

SOLUTION: Decide to be the master of your destiny or relegate yourself to being pushed around by circumstances beyond your control. Take control of your life. It’s really up to you.

2. It’s all about me – you are self-absorbed.

You know who you are. You get bored when someone else is getting the attention. You have the best stories (we’ve heard you one-up everybody). It’s always all about “you”.

Here is a wake up call: You are boring and dull. The only reason we listen to you is because either we are too nice to walk away or we realize that the politics of the organization we are a part of would be violated.

Your potential is diminished because you don’t understand that you cannot influence others when it’s obvious that you don’t care about them. Zig Ziglar said, “You can get anything you want, if you help enough other people get what they want.”

SOLUTION: In order to help yourself, you must help others. There’s no better long-term strategy to achieving your success. As Dr. Phil would say, “It ain’t about YOU!” Become a listener and a people person. Help others and then help yourself indirectly.

3. You allow others to make your life decisions.

You know how it goes; someone (Mom, Dad, or whoever you deem as influential) says you should do “this or that” with your life. Why? How do they know what you want? Or how you feel?

The family needs you to become a lawyer, or doctor, or accountant, or football star or whatever. “If you want me to pay for your college, then you’ll major in what I tell you to major in”.

To some of us, this seems absurd, but it happens. Really. Here’s a secret, if you are not happy, then you will not be able to make anyone else happy. The only thing that is sure is that by compromising you desires for someone else you will be filled with resentment and hurt.

Eventually, those emotions will be revealed.

SOLUTION: Why not cut to the chase and deal with it now? You’ll be happier in the long run and probably save a heap of money in psychoanalyst fees.

4. You are filled with subconscious self-doubt.

You are filled with doubts and thoughts of inadequacy. You feel un-deserving. If you don’t believe in yourself, then why should I? Or anyone else for that matter?

The short answer is that no one will believe in you. By the simple act of thinking self-deprecating thoughts, you have defeated yourself, regardless of your abilities.

Everyday, average people just like you and me have fantastic, original, creative thoughts and ideas. But just as quickly, they are dismissed and discarded for the simple reason that they must be of no value if a simpleton like you thought of them.

People tend to overestimate the talent, ability and intelligence of others and then compound the problem by underestimating their own attributes.

SOLUTION: Read “The Power of Positive Thinking” by Norman Vincent Peale. It is a classic and deserves to be. Learn some meaningful affirmations and use them. Become a true believer – in yourself.

5. Your are afraid.

I am not even going to attempt to list the wide variety of fears that hold people back.

SOLUTION: You must think of fear as the fence that keeps the herd in the pasture of mediocrity. You were not built for mediocrity. You are unique and you have unique abilities – use them.

6. You have no clear goals.

At least you are not alone. Studies and statistics that have been repeated many times prove that only 3–5 percent of the population have a tangible, written set of goals. Remarkably, this is the same percentage of financial independent people in the U.S. and world.

Do you think there is a correlation? It’s a no-brainer.

SOLUTION: Write down your goals and go over them daily. It will change your life.

Tags: success, fear, goals, self-doubt, scapegoat

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