The stumbling blocks to success
Robyn Sharma is one of the most prominent specialists in motivation, leadership and personal development in North America. In his works, he singled out 6 simple factors that stop a person from achieving outstanding results. Each of us has come across those at least once. Read on to find out what they are.
Misbelief
If you do not believe that you have the potential that will allow you to become one of the top in a chosen profession or field, you will not take steps towards realising that potential. You need to evaluate facts impartially: sports and music celebrities, famous scientists, social activists and businessmen – when they were born, they were all common people. Mainly thanks to their parents and sometimes teachers, they learnt to believe (and later to assume) that they have an innate ability to perform exceptionally well if they work hard, make sacrifices, stay constantly focused on the aim and keep improving every day.
If you give in to mass hysteria and assume that those people who are considered to be geniuses by everyone have better genes than you and therefore there is no chance that you may change the history one day, this misbelief alone will not let you achieve heights in your field. Resist misbelief.
Insufficient capitalization of own potential
Here, the term capitalization implies using a personal aptitude to achieve real results. If you are determined to accomplish proficiency in your field, you will have to capitalize the whole of your potential.
One of the best ways to achieve complete capitalization of your talents is to start your journey to proficiency as early as possible. As you begin your journey, though, take into account the research carried out by a Swiss psychologist Anders Ericsson, who discovered that to achieve the highest expertise in a field, one needs to devote 10 thousand hours to master the ability. In other words, if you want to gain expert knowledge in your area of interest in 10 years, you will have to spend 2 hours 44 minutes every day to master it!
Here is the bitter truth: to become top in your field, you will have to spend a lot of time and make an enormous effort. Unfortunately, we are too much into easy ways, too much dependent on the opinions of others and invest too much into own comfort instead of adopting different ways necessary to achieve success. Look out and don’t get into this trap.
Indifference around
Actions and achievements of any person depend in many ways on the people that surround him. If the people that make up your closest circle strive to achieve outstanding results, if they get up at 5 am so as to have as much time as possible to master their skills, if they employ the services of mentors and keep improving dawn till dusk, then you are more than likely will follow the same model. If, on the other hand, your friends waste the best years of their life on a sofa watching TV, gossiping and playing video games, this will affect your activity in a negative way. As you choose your friends, apathy and laziness will surely cause serious losses on your way to success. Bear this in mind.
Too many things to do
All prominent figures have one common trait – they all are focused on one thing only. Of course, you can make yourself busy doing different things, but you will only achieve mediocre results in each of these fields. You will be much better off if you concentrate on one activity and achieve top results in your chosen field.
Comfort
It is amazing how many exceptional personalities that achieved success had been born into underprivileged families. It looks very much like they got the idea: if they do not focus on their goal, if they fail to do their best to reach it, they will have to wave goodbye to their dream of better life, not to say about their hope not to starve.
Life conditions of the sort arouse exceptional persistence in a person, as well as firm determination and strong will to success. That is why comfortable conditions may be dangerous to everyone who strives to rise to eminence.
No matter how respected you become, do not let comfort turn you into a lazy scruffy old-timer. Follow the example set forth by Steve Jobs: having become a billionaire, he continued sleeping on a mat. If you want to achieve exceptional productivity and creativity – make yourself work so hard as if your life depends on your performance. For it really does.
Poor physical shape
It is not usually common to make a link between a person’s outstanding achievements and his physical shape. Nevertheless, excellent physical state is an imperative condition for achieving success. Will you really be able to improve yourself every day for ten years if you are ill? Will you manage to recover after a failure if you have no energy? How are you going to study and pay for your education if you lack endurance?
Good health, physical strength, being energetic and the ability to enjoy small things will help you not only gain victory, but also to inspire others. For everyone needs a hero.
