Out of
many different ways that we can sabotage our own success, these twelve are most common. All of us are guilty of these behaviors at various times, but knowledge of them gives us power to start to banish them from our lives.1. Ignore your own strengths and weaknesses.
We all have many individual attributes, but it is pointless trying to be someone or something that we are not. As Peter Thompson, great motivational speaker says, "People will only do who they are."
Don't ignore reality. Learn who you are and build your business or career accordingly.
2. Stop learning.
For many people, very idea of learning is something that they left behind at school or college. They don't read. In their jobs they only know one way. Their way.
Successful people are universally sponges for information. They read, listen to tapes, scour Internet and spend their whole lives learning.
The best investment anyone can make in their business, career or life is in their own ongoing education. If you are spending less than $200 a year on learning new things, you are short-changing yourself.
3. Believe that you can make it for free.
'Make $1000 a week with no outlay!'
We've all seen ads. By all means study them and analyze their sales and copywriting techniques. But don't believe them.
No person or business can succeed without intelligent and consistent investment. Some online endeavors may be able to manage on less capital than many traditional businesses, but they still need something.
Sure you can operate an affiliate mini site on a free web host, with free email accounts and do all writing and coding yourself. Trouble is, result is guaranteed to look amateurish and your chances of making sales virtually zero.
Don't be cheap. If it is worth doing, it is worth doing properly.
4. Try to get before you give.
We live in a gimme-gimme world. It is so easy to have a take-take attitude. Well, why not? There is so much available, why shouldn't we get our share first?
Successful people don't think that way. They see value of long term. Anyone can get a short-term benefit, but at what cost? Trust and respect are built by giving, not by taking. These two little words are foundation stone of any successful business or person.
Whether you are offering free advice or help to a fellow entrepreneur, or delivering far more than your customers expect, think of long term.
Build your business on a firm foundation. After all, there is a lot of truth in axiom, 'what goes around, comes around.'
5. Don't set goals.
What do you need goals for when you can play it by ear? Isn't all that goal stuff just new-age mumbo-jumbo?
No it isn't. Without a clear objective you can never reach your target. How many times have you heard a soldier being commanded 'Ready ... Fire.' There are always two little words in middle: 'Take Aim'. Imagine consequences otherwise!
Every successful person has mastered art of setting goals.
As Martha Lupton put it, 'To get anywhere, strike out for somewhere, or you'll get nowhere.'
6. Don't focus.
In any given day we have thousands of thoughts, hundreds of memories, scores of outside influences, dozens of helpful ideas, tens of items on out to-do lists. But of all these things, only one is important enough to take our full attention, right at this moment.
High achievers have mastered this art. They have ability to focus 100% of their mind, creativity, intuition and experience into a single laser beam that burns to heart of problem. Then they move on to next.
But which problem to start with? Two books that are very helpful in teaching you to identify what is important, and what is merely a time waster, are 'The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People' by Stephen Covey, and, 'The 80-20 Principle', by Richard Koch.
