Growing Success

To begin, I'm making an assumption that you feel you are capable of achieving more success and have greater potential than what you are already achieving. If I'm wrong, why are you reading this article?

If we can agree you are not reaching your full potential we need to look at what may be holding you back?

Adversity

A typical response to the "what's holding you back?" question is a list of adversities and life circumstances—real reasons, to be sure. I know. We all have them. I also know that other people, successful people, leverage their adversities as fuel to empower themselves. It may require some soul searching, getting a little angry, a little pissed off, rather than being pissed on. But one person's piss is another person's rocket fuel. Make it your rocket fuel, your motivation to move forward, to push past adversity that's standing in your way.

What's Your Dash?

Okay, you're ready to move forward. What's your goal? What's that mark you want to hit? Instead of thinking of a single worthy goal, perhaps it is better to think of your dash. The dash refers to the dash between the day you were born and the day you die. So the dash relates to your life. If you think about your life, and more specifically, the end of your life, what do you want your life to have meant. Whatever that meaning is, your goals ought to align with that underlying guiding principle.

Don't Fear Failure

People who are too afraid of failure never do anything for fear of failing. If you learn anything, learn from your failures. If a failure taught you anything, then consider it a lesson learned. Everyone fails before they succeed. It is said Thomas Edison failed 10,000 times to invent an electric light. Did he think he failed 10,000 times? No, he discovered 10,000 ways not to make an electric light. So don't fear failure; embrace it, learn what you can from the loss and use your gained knowledge to propel you forward. To become successful, fail faster and keep going.

Don't Fear Change

It's an instinct to resist change. Yet, resisting change can prevent you from pursuing and achieving goals. To grow is to change; to change is to risk a loss of control or perhaps a competency. It introduces a loss of certainty. Remember the old saying, "Better the devil you know than the devil you don't." We are creatures of habit, and it's frightening to leave part of the old you behind. The fear of giving up your competency of what you know to become a beginner at something new. The best way to overcome the fear of change is first to be aware of it. Then, see it for what it is and manage it to move forward.

Responsibility

To paraphrase Henry Ford, whether you do or don't at this point, it's up to you. You are responsible for your decisions. If you weren't aware of it before, you are now. You decide where you want to go from here. Hopefully, this information will point you in the right direction, but there is one other external pitfall I want you to consider.

Staying The Course

When you begin to change, people around you may disapprove. Say, for instance, you typically go out for drinks after work on a Friday night with co-workers. But you decide you want to be as clear-minded as possible on your Saturdays to pursue your goal. So you cut out the Friday night drinking, and instead of being happy you stopped drinking are pursuing your goals to better yourself, your co-workers are just the opposite. There could be many reasons for this; my guess at the top reason is that seeing you pursue your goal reminds them they are not following their goals or have given up on them altogether.

Your friends' and co-workers' emotions may range from resentment to jealousy. They may not even be aware of their feelings. They want the old you back and further want things as they were. In many cases, they will try to steer you back to your old behavior(s). Like, have one drink with us at the bar then go home and rest for tomorrow, surely you have one drink?

Not only are you fighting your nature not to change, but you must also push back on people in your life you care about, who care about you, also not wanting you to change. So, staying the course may be the hardest thing you do. But, if you can stay the course, not just for one goal, but for goal after goal, you will succeed because your success will be inevitable.