10 Reasons Why You're Holding Yourself Back

Working hard is just scratching the surface of what you need to do to be successful. In order to be the best, you have to know how and why your actions are holding you back in life. To help achieve your ultimate goal, let's look at ten common self-limiting behaviors that prevent us from achieving our true potential:

1) Breaking Bad Habits

A bad habit could take many forms, but it usually means a bad habit that not only does not help our personal lives but has negative consequences for those around us as well. Whether it means drinking too much or spending too much time on Facebook, these habits can lead up an unhappy life. Having self-discipline and self-control is the only way to fight these bad habits.

2) Being Lazy

Yes, being lazy is a habit. And it can be a serious one. Lazy people are people that are stuck in ruts and never contribute anything to anyone else in their lives. Although people believe being lazy is more of a lack of willpower than a habit, it's more about having the discipline to do something even when you're not motivated or inspired to do so.

3) Not Sticking To A Routine

Everyone knows that routines and habits make life easier, but having the discipline to stick with them can be difficult at times. If you're someone who avoids routines and habit, then your life will be anything but easy. Sticking to a routine and forming good habits will help make your life simpler, less stressful, and more enjoyable.

4) Being Afraid Of Failure

Fear of failure is what keeps people from achieving their goals. Many people don't try at all because they are afraid they'll fail. But if they try and don't succeed, that's OK too. The worst thing that can happen is you'll learn something valuable about yourself or the world around you. At least you'll know what doesn't work instead of continuing to do the same thing over again hoping it will eventually work out in the end.

5) Being Afraid Of Success

On the flip side of fearing failure is the fear of success. People who are afraid of success are too concerned about what others may think about them when they achieve their goals. They worry about what their friends, family, and colleagues will think about when they accomplish something that demonstrates to others that they've been successful. When you're this afraid of success, you will continue to avoid any chance at it in order to keep from being embarrassed.

6) Making Excuses For Failure

Successful people never make excuses unless they believe it's a good idea in some way or another. Making excuses for failure is a way of saying you're not willing to accept responsibility for your actions. There is no excuse in life that will make the failure go away. Accepting your mistakes and moving past them in a positive way will lead to much more success in the future.

7) Being A People Pleaser

People pleasers are people who bend over backwards to do whatever they can to make people happy. They are too concerned about what others think about them and their actions. This hinders their ability to truly be themselves around others, which means they won't be able to truly connect with anyone around them.

8) Letting Fear Make Decisions For You

Fear should be used to help guide you towards making smart decisions in life, but it shouldn't make the decision for you. Fear keeps people from doing things that are important to them and to those around them. This fear can lead to regret and a sense of inadequacy.

The only way to break past this fear is by being willing to face it head on. You have no control over what may or may not happen: only your actions and reactions can dictate how you will react later in the future, so make decisions based off of logic and intuition rather than out of fear, regardless of whether they work out or not.

9) Running From Your Emotions

People pretend they don't have any emotions when they don't want to deal with them, but the truth is everyone has emotions.

The difference between someone who acknowledges their feelings and someone who refuses to talk about their feelings is resolved: the first person owns their emotions and uses them as a tool for self-growth; the second person runs from them, hiding behind excuses instead of using them as a vehicle for growth and self-improvement.

The first is better equipped to create change in their lives because they are able to see clearly how their problems have affected them.

The second person is able to continue to live with the status quo because they are able to hide their emotions, only showing the emotions that they think others expect them to be shown.

10) Settling For What You Have

Allowing yourself to settle for less in life is a self-limiting behavior. If you have self-discipline and self-control, you will continue to improve yourself and recognize opportunities when they come your way.

Continuously reaching for more of what you want in life will leave you feeling satisfied with what it is that you have accomplished. Life would be much easier if we could all be as disciplined and willing to grow as the people who are willing to do these ten things above over the course of their lives.

In Conclusion

Everyone has bad habits that they need to break, but it can make life so much easier if we can be disciplined enough to eliminate them or at least make a serious effort towards changing them. Just remember that change is good and that you can't change what you don't acknowledge.

It's easier to see your habits as something that you need to improve upon than it is to focus on the bad side of them and feel like you're failing because of those bad habits.

It's important to constantly reflect on the things that are getting in the way of your happiness in life, so that you can work on eliminating these obstacles to having a better life for yourself.