Why am I not successful?

byMikeyB

4.4K followers

Updated 11 years ago

I am having a bit of a bad week this week to be honest, WA started well but then the information snowball rolled through Hampshire and I found myself dazed and battered over in West Sussex with a beaten ego and a sore head.

I pray you stay long enough to read this because I think this post has a lot of crucial keys to those of us that aren't where we will like to be. Please read this and take notes.

Got a pen and some paper, this is a long blog but for those of you that even read it I would like you to write each title down and evaluate where you stand on each, even with a X or a tick. For those of you that can't be bothered to read it then please jump down to the last point under failures.

I have scoured the internet over the last week trying to find out the difference between successful people and people who either fail or cannot get to where they want to be. Here's the good news

"They all boil down to the same points and I got 'em right here"

Here's the bad news,

"It takes work and effort to be successful"

As you all maybe know I am a bit of a goal nut so I do urge you to think long and hard about your goals.

I am going to say before I start this that I really want you to look at my POWER goals course, yes I harp on at it and thats because without goals you can forget the topic of success, I mean it, bored and tired as goals sound it's true. You will see it listed here in successes and failures. So don't do me a favour, do yourself a favour and get some understanding of the process of actually writing goals. It's a good course. Again if you can't be bothered to look at the course, head down to the last point under failures.

https://my.wealthyaffiliate.com/training/the-p-o-w-e-r-goal-setting-system

OK so success,

I am not going to get into the definition of success here but suffice to say that if you are frustrated and not content or if you are not where you want to be and you KNOW it, then I would say you are not successful.

The following are attributes that i have found over the internet that are keys to success, you decide if you have them

Make worthwhile Goals and plans. Without plans, goals will never be achieved and you will drift aimlessly through life without achieving anything worthwhile. You will need more than good intentions, wishful thinking and vague commitments to achieve the things you want in life. Goals must be supported by concrete plans in all the important areas of your life including finance, career, relationships and retirement. This is so vitally important, as I say in my course, our brain is a goal seeking mechanism, it will wander aimlessly unless it is fed goals and visions. Until you have tried this don't knock it.

Good interpersonal relationships. Successful people are good communicators and know the vital importance of developing active listening skills. Developing and practising empathy skills will increase your sensitivity and popularity with others. Networking will help you develop social skills and useful contacts. Use my BEGIN technique to develop a strong social network. This will be key in directing traffic to your sites. I have also found some lovely people from all over the world and have chatted about success and get help where needed.

Have confidence and self-belief. To be successful and more confident you must move out of your comfort zone, do something different and take some risks. Those with internal control believe that they are in charge of their lives and can influence the direction it takes. Confidence can be acquired like any other skill if you practise confidence building skills. Self-belief and confidence are interlinked as strong self-belief is an essential ingredient of confidence. I suggest that if you struggle with this then take some CBT (cognitive Behavioural Therapy) even the CBT book for dummies is a great tool.

Be optimistic. Optimists are hopeful and positive about the future. They are positive thinkers seeing opportunities and adopting challenges where others see problems. Because optimists think optimistic thoughts their positive expectations increase their motivation and effort to achieve. They are more likely to persist when others give up and so are more likely to succeed and overcome setbacks. One thing you will find as an optimist is that people may mock you and the favourite line is "well I am a realist" I have found or maybe I think that realists can be closet pessimists. The best way to become more positive is to slowly build up positive memories by evaluating each event from a better perspective.

Be persistent and resilient. Many people are on the threshold of success when they quit. We all know that quitters are not winners. Persistence, patience and passion are the hallmark of success.

Resilient people are successful because they have the facility to pick themselves up from failure and start all over again. Those without resilience become hopeless and helpless, adopt a victim attitude, become despondent or plunge into depression.

Remain highly motivated. Motivation is more important than ability in determining success. Motivated people are purposeful and passionate about their lives as they realise that life is not a dress rehearsal, that they only pass through it once, and that they must make the best of it. The key factors of motivation are courage, purpose, enthusiasm and energy.

Develop the habit of lifelong learning and continuous improvement. Lifelong learners are motivated and self-actualised by a love of learning and a natural curiosity. If you don’t change throughout your life you will stagnate and your skills will become peripheral or outdated. Lifelong learners adapt to change enabling them to improve, prosper and grow. Continuous improvement by updating your skills and knowledge will help you become the best you can be and is necessary to survive and thrive in a competitive world.

Practise good personal values. People with integrity inspire confidence in others because they are trustworthy, tell the truth and keep their promises. Some people with exceptional talent and potential have gone from hero to zero because of a lack of guiding values, principles and self-discipline to keep them on the straight and narrow. Adopting a code of personal values will help you live a meaningful and successful life.

They give themselves time "overnight success is never overnight" People will only ever see you successful as you hit the tipping point and as it is actually happening, No one sees all the hours that the tipping point took. No one was there on the sleepless nights and the early mornings, well maybe your spouse was but they knew you could do it. Doing BIG THINGS TAKES BIG TIME. I have found this very true with WA training, Don't overload, take it easy and remember that successful people allow good things to take time.

They are efficient By this I mean work hard and smart. You can work hard but not smart and you can work smart but not hard, Sorry guys, it takes both.

I found three others scattered around which also came a lot .

Have Grit. Grit is a willingness to commit to long-term goals, and to persist in the face of difficulty. Studies show that gritty people obtain more education in their lifetime, and earn higher college GPAs. Grit predicts which cadets will stick out their first grueling year at West Point. In fact, grit even predicts which round contestants will make it to at the Scripps National Spelling Bee.The good news is, if you aren't particularly gritty now, there is something you can do about it. People who lack grit more often than not believe that they just don't have the innate abilities successful people have. If that describes your own thinking .... well, there's no way to put this nicely: you are wrong. As I mentioned earlier, effort, planning, persistence, and good strategies are what it really takes to succeed. Embracing this knowledge will not only help you see yourself and your goals more accurately, but also do wonders for your grit.

Build your willpower muscle. Your self-control "muscle" is just like the other muscles in your body — when it doesn't get much exercise, it becomes weaker over time. But when you give it regular workouts by putting it to good use, it will grow stronger and stronger, and better able to help you successfully reach your goals.To build willpower, take on a challenge that requires you to do something you'd honestly rather not do. Give up high-fat snacks, do 100 sit-ups a day, stand up straight when you catch yourself slouching, try to learn a new skill. When you find yourself wanting to give in, give up, or just not bother — don't. Start with just one activity, and make a plan for how you will deal with troubles when they occur ("If I have a craving for a snack, I will eat one piece of fresh or three pieces of dried fruit.") It will be hard in the beginning, but it will get easier, and that's the whole point. As your strength grows, you can take on more challenges and step-up your self-control workout.

Don't tempt fate. No matter how strong your willpower muscle becomes, it's important to always respect the fact that it is limited, and if you overtax it you will temporarily run out of steam. Don't try to take on two challenging tasks at once, if you can help it (like quitting smoking and dieting at the same time). And don't put yourself in harm's way — many people are overly-confident in their ability to resist temptation, and as a result they put themselves in situations where temptations abound. Successful people know not to make reaching a goal harder than it already is.

So failure

So is it just the reverse of all these, well I don't think so. Yes if you had none of the above then it wouldn't be looking so good but again from the web i have found key reasons people fail.

Negative thinking Negative thinking is an important reason why people fail in life. As we all are aware that optimism and having faith are considered as the important factors that can lead one to success. If a person is not ready to think positively, then it is very difficult for him or her to achieve success as all the negative thoughts that the person gets over shadows the person’s ability to think in a positive way and also prevent the person to think of new ideas and ways to achieve success. A pessimistic person is only left with failure which can also lead the person to depression.

Not being aware of your strengths and weaknesses To achieve success in life, it is very important for everyone to know their weak and strong points. By doing so, people can focus on their strong points and enhance their positive aspects all the more and also they can work to improve their weak points. But if people are not aware of their strong and weak sides, then they will never know that what areas need improvement in their personality. And if the weak and strong sides of the personality are not looked up and worked upon properly, then no one can ever achieve success in life. That is the reason why people fail in life as they do not know what has to be done to improve their personality, since they are just not aware about the good and bad or weak and strong qualities of their character.

UNCLEAR GOALS (Oh how I love this one!) When someone is not aware of what he or she wants in life, then how can he or she achieve success? To achieve great heights, it is very important, that one must to that to what height he or she wants to go. Without setting a goal, there is no point of working hard. If people are not aware of their purpose in life and what they want to do in life, then what will they work for. That is why most of the people fail in life as they have not decided any goal and just keep following other peoples without using their own brains and understanding their potential. Sir Isaac Newton did the same and followed his father and started running his family farm which turned out to be complete failure. But when he got his goals cleared, he then became a famous Physics Scholar. Therefore, clearing goals is very important else one will only get failure.

Disorganised Lifestyle To achieve anything in life, it is very important that one must first set a goal in his or her life and then start working to achieve it in an organized manner. When someone is depressed or is suffering from mental disorders or when someone’s social and emotional life is completely cluttered, then that person usually becomes disorganized. That person is then not able to offer full dedication towards his or her goal. So, it is very important that disorganization in one’s life have to be taken care of as soon as possible as it takes away the productive environment from one’s life in which the person can enhance his or her quality of life and achieve success. Many people do not know that J.K Rowling was divorced, unemployed and she was raising her daughter with the help of Social Security Benefits when she started writing her first Harry Potter Novel. We see here that if she would have let this disorganized lifestyle conquer her, she would have never achieved success. Thus, one should prevent disorganized lifestyle, as it does nothing except leading one towards failure.

Fixed Mindset Success only comes to those who have the ability to adapt themselves according to the environment and the needs. If a person has a fixed mindset towards anything, then he or she will never be able to achieve success as he or she will not possess the ability to modify himself or herself according to the needs. Having a fixed mindset towards moral values and principles is a very good thing and everyone should try and adopt it but if someone has a fixed mind set about old techniques and is not ready to adopt new ideas and new thinking, then that person can never be successful. An interesting thing to know is that Walt Disney was dismissed by a newspaper editor as he was considered to have a fixed mindset and was believed to have lack of imagination. But Walt Disney changed that about him and now his ideas and imagination are admired by every single child. So, in order to achieve success, one must let go of fixed mindset.

QUITTING Oh phew this is a tough one, I see it every day in WA, It is a very well known saying that God helps those who help themselves. If a person gives up easily without putting in much effort, then God will also not help him or her achieve what they want in life. To get anything, one must have to work hard for it and that too with full dedication and determination. Those people who give up early are the ones who fail in life as they do not trust their capabilities.. Same was the case with Albert Einstein. Most people are not aware that Albert Einstein was not able to speak till the age of four and could not write till the age of nine. But he did not give up. If he would have, then we would have never known The Albert Einstein, the greatest scientist of all times. Thus, one should never give up, as it only leads to failure.

No Daily Routine Setting up a goal is only the first step, a lot more has to be done after that. Success only comes to those, who after setting up a goal prepares a routine and then follows it. Compromising with the pre scheduled routine can never lead to success. This is why people fail, they do not set up a routine and even if they do, they do not follow it and thus face time management problems in life which ultimately leads to failure.

STRESS Stress and tension are the main causes of failure. Every person has problems with stress but the important thing is how capable is the person to deal with it. No person in this world is devoid of stress but what matters is how to cope up with it. People who achieve success in life know how to deal with stress. Stress can be reduced in many ways, by listening to music, by meditation, by yoga and many more ways that makes the person happy. You need to find a way within yourself to minimise your stress levels. Hugely important.

Running behind money This is interesting. Though money is an important aspect of everyone’s life but one should never compromise their moral values to achieve success. All those people who run behind money will do every possible thing in their hand, whether good or bad to achieve success. People like this may only achieve success for a short period and maybe they sold their grandma along the way. Find your success by following your values and your integrity. Success should be sweet.

and lastly, the BIG ONE

APATHY or CBA or No energy This requires effort people. You cannot watch the X factor and say I want to be rich. It just doesn't work that way. Apathy is the great killer of dreams, the dark vehicle of failure, the vacuum that sucks the life force out of you. Now, I have 4 teenagers and yep they are all lazy and sleep and don't give a dam. I don't mean this kind of teen age apathy. I mean as adults, when we just dont care, cant be ar*&d and wonder why the world is moving on. Get motivated, take a course, find a class, do the gardening but GET UP!!! Enough said.