Overcoming Habits that Lead to Failure

Failure: It’s a set up… and YOU are the prime suspect. We have all experienced failures in life, and sometimes it can be frustrating to watch our friends and acquaintances succeed repeatedly. However, it’s wise to drop any of the habits that may lead to failure. Here are some habits to avoid:

Not practicing what you preach: Have you ever heard the saying, “Practice what you preach?” It’s something society demands, so you need to demand it from yourself. Everything begins and ends with the brain-heart connection. If you have negative thoughts, you’re likely to practice negative actions. It is essential to reverse any and all negative thinking. Become your biggest cheerleader and replace negative thoughts with positive ones.

Lack of mental skills: Mental skills encompass self-discipline, confidence, ambition, productivity, and positive core beliefs. They affect your attention span, memory, comprehension, processing skills, logic, and reasoning. Having strongly developed mental skills enables you to get through any situation without feeling like a failure.

I’ll try this for a while, but if it doesn’t work, I’m moving on: What motivates and excites you? If your heart is not in something, you cannot do it. Find your passion and purpose in life and go after it. Until you do, you’ll find yourself being unable to commit and bouncing from one job or business venture to another, ultimately making you feel like a failure.

False sense of entitlement: “Well, the government, my parents, etc. owe me.” Nobody owes you anything. Success comes from hard work and belief in oneself, not from a gift horse or a rich relative. The fact is, yes, you deserve to be a success, but you also deserve the opportunity to prove to yourself you can do it without relying upon others.

Mind reading/assumptions: Assuming what others are thinking is a side effect of negative core beliefs. It’s also a sign of envy. The quickest remedy for this is to reverse the negative core beliefs that play like a repeating tape recorder in your mind. Mind reading, in time, leads to frequent bad moods, false perceptions/assumptions and blocks out potential relationships and learning opportunities which could lead you to success.

Not willing to take risks: Calculated risks are risks that carry reward without devastating risks. Successful people take risks every single day, and so should you. It’s a fact that risk comes with reward. Fear of failure leads you to hide behind the unwillingness to take risks. So, basically, what you’re doing is blocking out the chances of reward, thereby setting yourself up for failure.

Impatience – immediate gratification: There is a saying, “All good things come to those who exercise patience.” If this saying annoys you, then think ‘baby steps’ instead. Each day, take one tiny step toward that goal, passion, degree, etc. If you become impatient, focus on the next step and tune out the big picture.

You keep doing what you’re doing, and you keep getting what you’re getting! This is a simple concept yet so hard to break. Think of it this way; if you keep beating your head against a brick wall, you will keep getting the same result – a bruised head. Eventually, you will fall to the ground either out of exhaustion or because you’ve knocked yourself out. Either way, you fail. So, STOP doing it and find another approach.

Ego/fear of failure: If you set out to accomplish something and you don’t, what’s the absolute worst that can happen? You fail? Think about Einstein, politicians, athletes. They failed over and over before they accomplished anything great. For many, it takes multiple failures to reach success. The only true failure is giving up on your passion.

Lack of persistence: A lack of persistence arises out of running out of steam. In other words, it’s mental exhaustion. You’ve worked so hard and feel like there’s nothing left inside of you to put any more into your project. So you slack off, and quit. Countless victories are abandoned before reaching a breakthrough or having success because you run out of steam at the most crucial point.

Mental strength is at the center of every failure. It’s imperative to keep the brain and heart aligned in thoughts and actions. If you practice any of these habits, make a conscious decision to drop them. You will find with each one you drop, your failures either fall by the wayside, or lead you to success. Failure is definitely a set up, and YOU are the prime suspect. Now go out, drop these habits and conquer your passions!

In conclusion, to conquer our failures in life, we must overcome the habits that lead to them. Practice what you preach, develop strong mental skills, find your passion, avoid a false sense of entitlement, drop mind reading and assumptions, take calculated risks, exercise patience, find new approaches, overcome ego and fear of failure, and persist through mental exhaustion. By doing so, we can overcome any obstacle and achieve success.