Obstacles To Overcome On Your Path To Success
Alex Danobrega
Acct. Director, Champions of Change | Information Technology | Business | Change Management
1. Wasting five minutes.
By lazing for five five-minute breaks each day, we waste 25 minutes daily. That's 9,125 minutes per year (25 X 365). Sadly, my guess is we're wasting far more time than that.
I was once told by my ninth-grade English teacher that if I read every time I had a break?Even if the break was just for a minute or two? That I'd get a lot more reading done than expected. She was right. Every time I finished my work early, or had a spare moment, I'd pick up a book and read.
How we spend our periodic five-minute breaks is a determining factor in what we achieve in our lives. Every little bit adds up.
Why can we justify wasting so much time?
2. Not valuing one dollar.
Understanding the value of one dollar is the same as coming to appreciate the value of time. To thoughtlessly spend one dollar may not seem like a big deal, but it actually is. That frivolous spending compounded over a long enough time could be millions. It also reflects a lack of care about the details, which is where the true art and value lies.
Additionally, most millionaires are?self-made, 80 percent being first-generation rich, and 75 percent being self-employed. Not getting paid hourly challenges you to take more responsibility for every minute and every dollar. Consequently, a great majority of millionaires are extremely frugal with or at least highly mindful of their money.
3. Believing success will make you happy.
"One of the enemies of happiness is adaptation,"?
"We buy things to make us happy, and we succeed. But only for a while. New things are exciting to us at first, but then we adapt to them,"
Actually,?savoring the anticipation or idea of a desired outcome is generally more satisfying than the outcome itself. Once we get what we want, whether that's wealth, health, or excellent relationships we adapt and the excitement fades. Often, the experiences we're seeking end up being underwhelming and even disappointing.
I love watching this phenomenon with relatives kids. They feel like they need a certain toy or the universe will explode. Their whole world revolves around getting this one thing. Yet once we buy the toy for them, it's not long before the joy fades and they want something else.
Until you appreciate what you currently have, more won't make your life better.
4. Believing you're not up for the challenge.
Just as we deceive ourselves into believing something will make us happier than it will, we also deceive ourselves into believing something will be?harder?than it will.
The longer you procrastinate or avoid doing something, the more painful (in your head) it becomes. However, once you take action, the discomfort is far less severe than you imagined. Even to extremely difficult things, humans adapt.
I recently sat on a plane with a lady who has 17 kids. Yes, you read that correctly. After having eight of her own, she and her husband felt inspired to foster four siblings, whom they later adopted. A few years later, they took on another five foster siblings, whom they also adopted.
Of course, the initial shock to the system impacted her entire family. But they're handling it. And believe it or not, you could handle it too, if you had to.
The problem with dread and fear is that it holds people back from taking on big challenges. What you will find, no matter how big or small the challenge, is that you will adapt to it.
When you consciously adapt to enormous stress, you evolve.
5. Pursuing "happiness."
There is no way to happiness, happiness is the way.?
Most people believe they must:
Paradoxically, this "have-do-be" paradigm must actually be reversed for you to experience happiness, success, or anything else you desire:
You attract what you are. If you want the things happy people have, you must be happy to get those things. If you want things wealthy people have, you must be and live wealthy to have those things.
Results translate from attitudes and behaviors. Not the other ways around.
6. Undervaluing what you have.
Of course I get stressed out. If anyone says they don't get stressed out, they're lying. But one thing that mitigates that is taking time each morning to declare and focus on the fact that "I have enough." I have enough. I don't need to worry about responding to every email within a second. If they get mad, that's their problem.
If you appreciate what you already have, then more will be a good thing in your life. If you feel the?need?to have more to compensate for something missing in your life, you'll always be left wanting no matter how much you acquire or achieve.
7. Competing with other people.
All failed companies are the same: They failed to escape competition.
Competition is extremely costly to maximum product reach and wealth creation. It becomes a battle of who can slightly out-do the other for cheaper and cheaper. It's a race to the bottom for all parties involved.
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Instead of trying to compete with other people or businesses, it's better to do something completely novel or to focus on a tightly defined niche. Once you've established yourself as an authority on something, you can set your own terms rather than reactively responding to the competition. Thus, you want to monopolize the space in which you create value.
Competing with others leads people to spend every day of their lives pursuing goals that aren't really their own, but rather what society has deemed important. You could spend your whole life trying to keep up, but will probably have a shallow life. Or, you can define success for yourself based on your own values and detach yourself from the noise.
8. Trying to have it all.
Every decision has opportunity cost. When you choose one thing, you simultaneously don't choose several others. When people say you can have it all, they are lying. They are almost certainly not practicing what they preach and are trying to sell you on something.
The truth is, you don't?want?it all. And even if you did, reality simply doesn't work that way. We all need to choose what matters most to us, and own that. If we attempt to be everything, we'll end up being nothing. Internal conflict is hell.
9. Forgetting where you came from.
When you achieve any level of success, it's easy to believe you are solely responsible for that success. It's easy to forget where you came from.
It's easy to forget all the sacrifices other people have made to get you where you are.
It's easy to see yourself as superior to other people.
Burn all your bridges and you'll have no human connections left. In that internal cave of isolation, you'll lose your mind and identity, becoming a person you never intended to be.
Humility, gratitude, and recognition of your blessings keep your success in proper perspective. You couldn't do what you've without the help of countless other people. You are extremely lucky to be able to contribute in the way you have.
10. Letting others determine how much money you can earn.
Most people "say" they want to be successful. But if they really wanted to, they'd be successful.
I used to tell people, "I wish I played the piano." Then someone said, "No you don't. If you did, you'd make the time to practice." I've since stopped saying that, because he was right.
Life is a matter of priority and decision. And when it comes to money in a free-market economy you can make as much money as you choose. The question is, how much money do you really want to make?
Instead of vegging on social media day-after-day, year-after-year, you could spend an hour or two each day building something of value like yourself.
Napoleon Hill invites readers to write down on a piece of paper the amount of money they want to make, and to put a time-line on it. This single act will challenge you to think and act in new ways to create the future of your wanting.
For example, despite growing up so poor that for a time his family lived in their Volkswagen van on a relative's lawn, Jim Carrey?believed in his future. Every night in the late 1980s, Carrey would drive atop a large hill that looked down over Los Angeles and visualize directors valuing his work. At the time, he was a broke and struggling young comic.
One night in 1990, while looking down on Los Angeles and dreaming of his future, Carrey wrote himself a check for $10 million and put in the notation line "for acting services rendered." He dated the check for Thanksgiving 1995 and stuck it in his wallet. He gave himself five years. And just before Thanksgiving of 1995, he got paid $10 million for?Dumb and Dumber.
11. Taking rather than giving.
From a scarcity perspective, helping other people hurts you because you no longer have the advantage. This perspective sees the world as a giant pie. Every piece of the pie you have is pie I don't have. So for you to win, I must lose.
From an abundance perspective, there is not only one pie, but an infinite number of pies. If you want more, you?make?more. Thus, helping others actually helps you because it makes the system as a whole better. It also builds relationships and trust and confidence.
I have a friend, Nate, who is doing some really innovative stuff at the real estate investing company he works for. He's using strategies that no one else is using. And he's?killing?it. He told me he considered keeping his strategies a secret, because if other people knew about them, they'd use them and that would mean fewer leads for him.
But then he did the opposite. He told everyone in his company about what he was doing. He has even been giving tons of his leads away! This had never been seen before in his company.
But Nate knows that once this strategy no longer works, he can come up with another one. And that's what leadership and innovation is all about. And people have come to trust him. Actually, they've come to rely on him for developing the best strategies.
Nate makes pies for himself and several other people. And, yes, he is also the top-selling and highest-earning in his company. It's because he gives the most and doesn't horde his ideas, resources, or information.
12. Viewing your work as "work."
The cool part about poetry is that to most poets,?how?their poems are performed?is just as important if not more important than?what?is actually said.
In a similar way, when you go to an event or to hear a speech, you're usually going to see the speaker, not to hear what they have to say. You already know what they have to say.
No matter what type of work you are in, it will be better received if you see it as an art form. You are performing for an audience. They want?you?just as much as they want your work often more.
Quotes
"Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved."
"The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing."
"There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work, and learning from failure."
"If you really want to do something, you'll find a way. If you don't, you'll find an excuse."
"The difference between who you are and who you want to be is what you do."