1) You don’t know what success is

The problem with success is that most people don’t fully understand what it is.  Success cannot be generalized because success is not the same thing for everyone.   A successful life all depends on the individual’s goals for themselves and their ability to achieve those goals.  Goals change throughout a person’s life so the idea of success will also change.  If at the age of 5 a child wants to grow up to be a football player, then success is making it to the NFL.  But by the age of 21 if he decides that investment banking is what he would like to do, then his definition of success has changed. 

From the very simple goals of losing a certain amount of weight, to the life changing goals of raising a stable family, success is yours to define.  Once that definition is clear it will be much easier to recognize when you see it.  The clarity of your goals is essential to your success journey.  And your definition of success must be tangible and measurable.  Otherwise you will be chasing an elusive shadow with no face. Identify your success and make it clear before you seek to find it.

 

2)Wrong assessment of what you can do

I’ve never been a big American Idol fan.  It is amazing the fanatics that this show has spawned through a series of singing competitions that are split into elimination rounds.  When this show is in season, the talk of every radio and television station is who will win Idol.  One of the biggest draws of the program is being able to witness those poor souls who truly believe they are destine to become famous despite their obvious lack of singing talent.  Although millions of people sit back and watch as a person blindly attempts an impossible feat, many of those observers are doing the same thing in their own lives.

Many embark on the journey of success without truly knowing if they have the tools they need to claim victory.  The ability to step outside of yourself, clearly assess what your skill level is, and determine what you are capable of as an individual, is an invaluable skill to have.  It takes more than just a belief in yourself to achieve your goals.  It takes persistence, talent, hard work and an understanding of the product which is you.

You may have a dream and talent but have you fully harnessed that talent and conformed it so that it is perfected?  How well would your talents and skills match up against those who are where you want to be?  These questions should be posed and cross-examined before a true attempt at your success is launched.

 

3)Unreasonable goals

They are sometimes called unrealistic goals.  Right along with an assessment of what you can do, you must also correctly assess what the goal is.  In order to prevent yourself from setting unreasonable goals, accomplishments towards that goal should be measured by time.  If your goal is to make a certain amount of money, then to make sure you are making progress you should set a time frame for that goal to be realized. 

When you examine your situation and reevaluate your skill set, you will be better able to judge how realistic your goal is.  I must advise you that this does not mean that you should short yourself and aim low.  Les Brown said, “Shoot for the moon and if you miss you will still be among the stars”.  But being realistic means that you are willing to equip yourself with the skills, education, discipline, hard work, and persistence that it will take to achieve your intention.

 

4)Your thinking is not aligned with your goals

Doubt and fear are two incredibly powerful inhibitors.  Mixed with a lack of clarity and misguided vision, success is almost impossible.  Aligning your thoughts with your goals is crucial to what you want to achieve.  Changing your thoughts and managing your inhibitors may be a problematic task. Especially if your thinking has been misaligned for a long period of time.

Your thought process when dealing with your success should reinforce what you want to accomplish not undermine it.  It’s like that old saying, ‘if you want to catch a thief, you must think like a thief’.  If you want to be a successful person, you must think like a successful person.  It is well known that most of the most influential people in the history of the world had different ways of thinking.  Your way of thinking is the beginning of your success. William Arthur Ward said, “Nothing limits achievement like small thinking, nothing expands possibilities like unleashed thinking.”

 

5)Your Actions are not aligned with your goals

As I said before your thinking is the first step towards success, not the only step. 

Think about this quote by John Locke “The actions of men are the best interpreters of their thoughts.”Those who have achieved great things not only thought great thoughts, but they also took great actions and took great risk.  That is one reason that I enjoy biographies.   When I read about someone who has accomplished much in their lives I try to take notice of those acts and risk that were taken in order to realize those accomplishments.   The people, who are willing to take action towards their goals and seize opportunities, are the one who break that barrier of potential and achieve success.

If you are not where you would like to be yet, you must look at what you are doing and formulate an action plan that will get you to where you want to be.  Is there a way you can take better, more calculated risk?  How about your time management, is there a way to get better results from the time you are spending?  Are you doing all the necessary training, learning, and preparation that is needed for you to overachieve?  Look at your actions and align them with your thinking in order to produce better results. 

 

6)Your environment is not aligned with your goals

If you’ve never heard of the story of the crab bucket here it is in a nutshell:

A man was walking along the beach and saw another man fishing in the surf with a bait bucket beside him. As he drew closer, he saw that the bait bucket had no lid and had live crabs inside.

“Why don’t you cover your bait bucket so the crabs won’t escape?” he said.

“You don’t understand.” the man replied, “If there is one crab in the bucket it would surely crawl out very quickly. However, when there are many crabs in the bucket, if one tries to crawl up the side, the others grab hold of it and pull it back down so that it will share the same fate as the rest of them.”

We might look at that story with our big human brains and think that those poor unintelligent creatures doom themselves by their behaviors.  Surely humans are much more logical and would never react that way.  Truth is people act that way all the time.

Here is a way to tell if you are surrounded by crabs that will stop you from succeeding.  The next time you are with a friend or a group of friends, share with them something you would like to do that would better yourself.  If you environment is inhabited by crabs, you will get negative, discouraging, and sometimes sarcastic responses.  Sometimes the crabs, I mean people, are just trying to spare you some pain or humiliation.  Other times just the thought of you doing anything that they can’t or won’t do is enough to force them to deter your efforts.  In order for you to succeed you must put yourself in an environment that you can strive in.  Not one that is bent on keeping you in the bucket.

 

7)You’ve given up too soon.

Thomas Edison said, “Many of life’s failures are experienced by people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up”.  The importance of persistence is sometimes overlooked in society today.  We require things to come fast and easy and if they don’t, then we move on.  This idea doesn’t work when applied to the principals of success.  When obstacles appear and the goal seems impossible is when most people bail.  There was a recent survey of Pentamillionaires (people who have made 5 million dollars or more) who started their own business or worked for a small company that had an explosive growth.  Most reported that their success came in a lump sum after years of effort.  Years of effort!  You never know how close you are to succeeding.  You only know what you’ve done so far to succeed.  Your goals and dreams may be a day, two days, one hour away. But if you give in now you’ll never know.