Are you hung up on these 12 things?
Do you want to be successful in life? And by success, we simply mean succeeding at whatever it is you’ve set your mind to. If you do, avoid getting hung up on these 12 things that unsuccessful people let stand in their way.
1. People who want what you have and try to sabotage you to get it.
There will always be someone who wants what you have or what you’re working towards.
Their jealousy will likely make them act negatively toward you. They might try to get in your head to drag you down, or they might try to take something from you (be it a job they decide to interview for once you’ve said you’re interviewing for it, or choosing to flirt with the person they know you like).
How you choose to deal with these people will affect how likely you are to succeed.
Unsuccessful people give these jealous types time and energy that they don’t deserve, time that would be better spent working toward their goals. Whereas successful people know to ignore the jealousy and keep pushing on. After all, if people want what you have, or what you’re working towards, they need to put the blood, sweat, and tears in…just like you have to.
2. Fear of the unknown or of getting it wrong.
Everyone gets scared at times—whether it’s about not having enough money, ending up alone, or failing in work or business. But people who don’t succeed in life let this fear control their decisions.
Fear can keep you blinkered and unable to achieve your goals because you shut down when things get uncertain or unfamiliar.
You know the saying, “If you want something you’ve never had before, you need to do something you’ve never done before,” right? Well, that’s only possible if you can learn to let go of fear.
Trying new approaches may be scary, but that doesn’t mean it’s bad. Discomfort is where growth happens—and growth is where success comes from.
3. Other people’s judgments of you and the path you’re taking.
It’s natural to be conscious of how other people perceive you—we all are, whether we want to admit it or not. But caring too much about what others’ think will hamper your success.
Successful people care about the opinions of those they love and trust, as well as key leaders or experts, but they don’t let negative judgments from others hold them back from doing what they need to do to reach their goals.
On the other hand, unsuccessful people find it hard to take a step back and block out the judgmental comments they get, even from people whose opinions bear no weight.
At the end of the day, only you truly know how hard you’re working, how much passion you have, and how much you want to reach your goals, so why let irrelevant people’s judgments get in the way of your success?
4. Comparing yourself to others and thinking you come up short.
Self-doubt happens to the best of us. We live in a world of endless one-upping and constant comparison, both online and in real life. It’s hard not to get dissuaded sometimes, especially when it looks like everyone else is doing better than you.
Unsuccessful people forget that in life, most people present the ideal, filtered, ultra-enhanced version of themselves, not the real version. They compare themselves to this and find themselves lacking.
Learning to challenge negative thoughts and address a lack of self-belief is a real skill, and it’s something that unsuccessful people don’t focus on enough.
The more you can fight those feelings and thoughts, the closer you’ll be to achieving your dream.
5. Setbacks and delays, even when they’re unavoidable.
There will always be setbacks, no matter how prepared or intelligent, or passionate you are.
Both the iPhone and space rockets underwent multiple iterations before being ready for “launch.” Similarly, Olympic athletes have faced setbacks and have experienced frustration in their pursuit of personal bests.
Yet unsuccessful people see setbacks as failures, rather than lessons.
They forget that everything worth anything takes time and that some things are simply out of your control. No matter how much you hustle, there will be roadblocks and red tape at some point.
6. Doing things the “right” or conventional way.
Worrying too much about adhering to norms or conforming to the status quo can hinder your success. Whilst there is a reason that certain ways of thinking or approaches to life are popular, it doesn’t necessarily mean that they are going to be right for you.
Yet unsuccessful people get bogged down in conventions, afraid to forge their own path.
In contrast, successful people ignore the traditional ways of doing things if they’re not working. They know that there are always multiple options, multiple routes, to their goals—if the conventional paths don’t work, there are a dozen backup paths ready to be explored.
7. Having to experience short-term pain, and make sacrifices and compromises along the way.
You are guaranteed to experience a level of short-term pain on any path to success—whether it’s having to let go of certain people in your life who no longer bring value or making sacrifices in your lifestyle or spending habits.
You might have to save some money to invest in your business idea, meaning there are some short-term adjustments (fewer meals out, no holidays, and so on), or you might have to give up your twice-weekly yoga class to stay home and hustle.
Equally, maybe your idea of success is centered around a relationship or having kids—in which case, your short-term pain might look a bit more like giving up big nights out, solo holidays, and adapting (read: abandoning) your sleep schedule for your newborn.
Unsuccessful people struggle to see past this short term pain and sacrifice. They let these short-term adaptations stand in their way. They don’t trust that the sacrifices will pay off so they never take the plunge and push forward.
8. The pursuit of wealth as the end goal.
Unsuccessful people often make the mistake of letting money become the be-all and end-all.
What many don’t realize is that successful people often strive for a particular outcome rather than the financial rewards that might follow. They enjoy the satisfaction of achieving a goal, even if that goal has nothing to do with money.
If your idea of success is having a career you love or a partner that makes you happy, does money actually matter that much to you?
If not, don’t fool yourself into thinking you’d be happier if you were filthy rich.
9. Other people’s success.
It can be challenging to stop comparing yourself to those around you—we’re bombarded with ‘proof’ of others living their best lives on social media, and it’s easy to get caught up in a comparative downward spiral.
Unsuccessful people struggle with this more than others and find it hard to tune out the lives of those around them. On the flip side, successful people know that everyone shares their ‘highlight reel’ rather than their reality, so they don’t get caught up on how other people seem to be doing.
People who are less likely to succeed also often forget that everyone has different metrics for success and they fall into the trap of thinking that one person’s success diminishes their opportunity for success. But the reality is there is plenty to go around, and nobody has a monopoly on crushing goals.
10. Considering other people’s wants and needs above their own.
While it’s important in life to consider others, it’s important to note that a level of selfishness is needed to achieve your goals. Unsuccessful people tend to forget this, or feel that they need to prioritize others wants over theirs.
In short, they are people pleasers.
And as a result, they’re too busy helping everyone else achieve their goals to achieve theirs.
Successful people are considerate and kind, but they avoid getting bogged down in fixing everyone else’s lives for them. They know it’s ok to cancel a plan every so often to work toward their goals and they surround themselves with people who understand this.
On the other hand, unsuccessful people tend to end up surrounded by those who take far more than they give.
11. Traditional or superficial metrics about what success looks like.
When you think of reaching your goals, what do you see? Are you winning countless awards, jetting off to fancy conferences, or doing a traveling TED Talk?
Not all success has to be public or grandiose, but that’s something that unsuccessful people struggle to understand.
They get hyper-fixated on the huge levels of fame they can reach, and as a result they forget to focus on how to get to the endpoint and what that genuinely looks like for them.
They forget to prioritize the journey because they are solely focusing on the destination.
12. The pursuit of perfection rather than success.
To be successful, you need a certain level of humility. You need to be able to accept when things aren’t working, when to try a new path, and when to admit defeat with your approach and get ready for round 2 (or 3, or 4…).
When you’re putting a lot on the line (your money, time, reputation, feelings), it can feel embarrassing or shameful to admit that something isn’t quite right.
Nobody wants to be the one who tried to make it and failed, right?
Right. But some people take this avoidance of mistakes to the next level. And the result? Ironically, it’s failure.
Unsuccessful people tend to get so bogged down in how badly something went wrong, that they can’t see it as an opportunity to find a new approach.
For example, maybe they pitch to a new client and it doesn’t go well, so they just give up. Instead, they could have accepted that they didn’t get it quite right and found a way to make their next pitch better. They could have asked for feedback, gauged people’s reactions, and worked out at which point of the pitch people started to disengage.
One path leads to failure, the other to another chance to get it right.
Which path do you take?
