Whether you want to succeed at in life—your career, a hobby, your personal life—there are a few mistakes that can be considered universal barriers to achieving success in life or profession.
I have noticed mistakes that you should be able to avoid at any cost.
Do not put roadblocks on your own path to success
Avoid responsibility
“The price of greatness is responsibility.” –Winston Churchill
Do not nurture a blaming or victim mentality. When things go wrong, what is your first response?
“I couldn’t succeed because of X, Y, and Z” or “It’s actually this person’s fault.” You would rather own a mistake rather than blame others for their failure or misfortune. I believe the key here is that by owning a mistake, you are more likely to learn from it and much less likely to repeat it.
Never adopt ‘’this is not my job’’ attitude.
Keep Procrastinate habits away
“Procrastination is the bad habit of putting off until the day after tomorrow what should have been done the day before yesterday.” ~Napoleon Hill
Take action, regardless of whether it is the “perfect” time or not.
When Gutenberg invented the printing press, the literacy rate was almost nonexistent—not exactly perfect market conditions for mass producing books.
And no one knew they needed a “smart” phone until Apple invented one.
Do not wait for the perfect time to do something. Work hard and don’t give up—regardless of what might be going on around you.
Success is very often the accumulation of many small achievements over a long period of time.
Procrastination kills your initiatives – wait and watch, is dangerous.
Do not only Follow the trends
“Great things are not accomplished by those who yield to trends and fads and popular opinion”. –Jack Kerouac
Overcome Shiny object syndrome
Every day we produce 2.5 quintillion (1018) bytes of data. In that flood of information, it’s tempting to think that we have to jump at every new development, try every new thing.
Then you will have no time to develop the deep understanding that pursuing lifelong learning might. Focus your energies on understanding the root of what you hope to succeed at and ignore the rest.
For example, if you hope to succeed in sales or marketing you might choose to study human psychology rather than the latest social media marketing schemes.
Do Not Try to go it alone
“Life is not a solo act. It’s a huge collaboration, and we all need to assemble around us the people who care about us and support us.” –Tim Gunn
Surround yourselves with other successful people. No man is an island, and having a network, a mastermind group.
Surround oneself with clever people can make all the difference between success and failure. This is true whether you hope to succeed at a personal goal like weight loss (studies show people lose more weight in a group than alone) or a business goal.
Networking is for enriching your life.
Lack of belief
“Believe in yourself! Have faith in your abilities! Without a humble but reasonable confidence in your own powers you cannot be successful or happy.” –Norman Vincent Peale
If you are skeptical, if you don’t believe that you can succeed, why would you even try?
You must cultivate a strong belief in yourself even in the face of setbacks or adversities if you hope to ultimately be successful.
I see unsuccessful people not seeking a healthy balance between work that fulfills, family life, friends, and health. Only when you make happiness and balance a goal can you truly succeed in any other area of your life.
Work Life Balance is not only a slogan – not only a buzzword – it is for YOU.
How have you avoided making these mistakes?
Please share your success and wisdom with us at Pathfinders.
Suresh Shah, M.D., Pathfinders Enterprise