3 Things That Will Make You Fail
#032
Success is not guaranteed, and one of the easiest ways to make sure you’re going to fail is to do the things listed below. Life isn’t binary, so not doing these items will not guarantee success, but it gives you an opportunity to avoid pitfalls other people have made.
The first thing you need to either stop doing or not continue to do is procrastinate. I see articles all the time describing life hacks on how to get things done when you have bad procrastination habits. Procrastination is a cancer to success. Successful people don’t procrastinate. They know the sooner they do something, the closer they are to either achieving their goals, or they learn something new. People aren’t impressed when you can do a large time-consuming project in a short period because you wasted all of the lead time you had on doing irrelevant things. Procrastination is probably one of the most detrimental things to your advancement.
The next thing that is going to keep you from achieving your goals is looking for excuses. There is always a reason not to do something, why is it that you always seem to find it? I think most people only select certain goals because they are looking for a new excuse to tell themselves or their friends. Excuses are an easy way to ensure nothing ever gets done. When I was younger, I almost exclusively looked for excuses not to do something. Whenever I set a goal, worked on it until I hit a relatively small roadblock. It was almost therapeutic to tell people what I wanted to do, but why I couldn’t. Now I know no one cares why I can’t do something. If you hit a wall, climb it, tear it down, or go around it. For more actionable advice, if you find yourself stuck, determine if you know enough to solve it or what’s missing, and go fill in the gaps. Successful people don’t let an excuse prevent them from advancing.
The last thing that is going to stop you is having a bad environment. This one may seem obvious, but people seem to think they can easily overcome their environmental forces. Surrounding yourself with negativity will never produce positive results. Your environment can include your friends and family, your actual living conditions, and the content you consume. We all know not to hang around negative people, but it seems like we don’t think reading negative things on the internet impacts us very much. I had to reorganize my environment and habits. Instead of responding “what happened” whenever my wife would be looking at her phone and would say, “That’s so terrible”, I now just change the subject. Negativity is infectious and can shut down a whole operation.
These three things will bring you down if you aren’t paying attention to them. If you can avoid these three things, you will increase your odds of success. Success is not guaranteed, but neither is failure.
Sincerely,
Daithi D.