It is often very difficult to really see the true reasons behind our inability to achieve the results we want in life. It’s almost as if we’re completely blind to the truth. Of course this is hardly surprising, considering the fact that our Ego’s are constantly working on hiding the truth from us because our Ego’s don’t want us to see our own faults.
It is for this exact reason I began working with success coaches about 16 months ago and I’ve grown in leaps and bounds. It is so much easier for someone else to see what is really blocking us from achieving a goal like making money doing what we love.
But what if you don’t have a coach to work with right now? Well, I’d like to identify a list of some of the more common areas that have stopped me from achieving what I want in life in the past, and perhaps it may help you identify the most likely culprit for your specific situation.
1. Fear
Fear comes in many, many flavors. It is an all-encompassing Ego centered energy that basically has only one single agenda - PROTECT THE EGO AT ALL COST. Rooted at the core of our being, fear’s job is to protect us. However, in order for us to really explore the world and do what we want to do and to enjoy life we have to venture past fear. There really is no point living life if you’re going to barricade yourself in some bunker and live in complete fear of everything around you. In order to make money doing what we love we have to get really good at identifying our fears. We all have our fears, and that’s ok.
Becoming aware of what our fears are, however, will help you to move forward. If for example you want to get into a career as a professional sales person, but you have a strong fear of rejection, it might be difficult to pick-up the phone to make sales calls. If you have a fear of public speaking, it may be difficult to pursue your passion of becoming a stand-up comedian. A great way of knowing if fear is stopping you, is to ask yourself “If I was completely fearless, what would I do?” and look at the answers that pop into your head. It will show you clearly what fear is stopping you from doing right now.
2. Laziness
A close cousin to fear is laziness. It is important to be able to distinguish between the two though, because you may find it very frustrating to not be able to do something consistently for a period of time and think that you’re being lazy, when in fact it is fear that is stopping you. For example, if you’re a sales person and you have to make outgoing phone-calls and you have a fear of rejection, it may be your fear that’s stopping you from hitting your goal of making 10 calls per day, not the fact that you’re lazy.
Ask yourself if you’re being lazy or if it’s really fear that’s stopping you. If you make a decision to visualize your dreams for 5 minutes every morning and you don’t do it, chances are that it is laziness that’s stopping you, not fear, because why would anyone have a fear of visualizing?
3. Limiting Beliefs
Very few people realize that it may be their limiting beliefs that are stopping them. For example, imagine if you’re trying to build a successful business that allows you to retire early in life but you have a deep-routed limited belief hidden in your subconscious mind that states that “Money is the root of all evil.” or that “Rich people are evil and they became rich by stepping over other people.”
Limiting beliefs are like shackles that hold you back. You can be taking positive action, you can be visualizing, you can be doing what you’re supposed to be doing, but you seem to find yourself always self-sabotaging your success. That’s how limiting beliefs work. They work behind the scenes to orchestrate failure. Most of us have some form of limiting beliefs around our dreams. Dig deep to find yours. Once you’re unshackled from your limiting beliefs you will feel a lot lighter and a lot more energized to move forward and live your dream like making money doing what you love.
4. In-congruent Identity
You have to make sure that whatever it is that you’re pursuing as a way of making money doing what you love fits in with your identity. You identity will grow throughout your life and you have to be willing to re-invent yourself constantly. For example, I used to be a programmer. That was my identity. I acted like a programmer, I dressed like a programmer, I got paid like a programmer.
As my experience in the business world grew I had to re-invent myself and I had to change some things about my identity. For example, if I wanted to build a career in sales, I would have to make sure that my identity includes the personality trait of starting conversations and smiling at people. As a programmer that may not have been a big deal, but as a sales person that may be super important.
Identify some of the personality traits and identity traits that would make up your character if you were already making money doing what you love. How is that different from who you are today? Are you willing to change?
5. Lack of Focus
Lack of focus is a big one for most people. Focus can be very easily controlled by controlling the habitual questions you allow yourself to ask yourself inside your head. If you’re constantly asking yourself questions like “How else can I be of value?” you will focus on totally different things in life compared to if you’re always asking yourself questions like “What if I don’t succeed?” or “How will I pay my rent this month?”
Get clear on the types of questions you’re asking yourself and identify where those questions force your focus.
6. Poor Habits
Habits are super important. If you can master the force of habits in your life you can do almost anything. If you do not understand how habits work and you simply allow them to run your life, it is going to be very difficult to achieve any long-term level of success in your life. Poor habits produce poor results. Rich habits produce rich results.
7. Lack of a Clear Vision
This is another big one. Do you have a crystal clear vision of what you WANT? Or do you focus all your time talking about what you DON’T want? Create a vision for yourself. You absolutely, positively must know exactly what you want and have a clear vision of it if you hope to achieve it.
8. Inability to Establish Relationships
No man or woman is an island. We live on this planet Earth as citizens of a common planet. Learn to establish human relationships, even if it’s only over the Internet. You don’t have to be best friends with everyone in the world, but building strong personal relationships based on integrity and trust will be paramount to your ability to make money doing what you love.
9. Not Asking for What You Want
Most people are afraid to ask for what they want. Don’t be one of these people. Just decide right now that you’re going to ASK for what you want. You may not get it, but at least you asked. I was at Swiss Chalet today picking up an order of food my wife ordered over the phone. When you order over the phone there is a platter combo that they don’t offer you unless you eat-in at the restaurant. When I got to the restaurant I asked them if there is a way that they can offer me the platter combo. They were happy to offer it to me, which saved me $4 on my order.
Did I ask for the combo to save $4 though? No, I asked because I am establishing a habit of asking for what I want. They didn’t have to give it to me. I would have been ok if they said no, but I wouldn’t have been ok with myself for not asking. How can you ever expect to have healthy relationships with people on Earth if you never ask for what you want. Unless you surround yourself with Psychics, you’ll always be disappointed. Just ASK!
10. Lack of Persistence
Persistence is a major key to success. You have to learn to clearly identify what it is that you want and to pursue it with all your energy. The universe favors those who have the persistence to stick to what they want. How could you be more persistent on your quest to make money by doing what you love?
11. Lack of Confidence
Self-Confidence is not something we are all automatically born with. Instead, it is something that we are always either building up or tearing down. Don’t mistake self-confidence as your ability to always succeed. Self-Confidence can be built up even during times of temporary failure. It is how you react and conduct yourself during the darkest hours that will build your confidence. How would you rate your self-confidence right now at your job? How would you rate your self-confidence at being able to make money by doing what you love? What can you do to build up your confidence levels?
12. Lack of Action
Ah, the great equalizer. This is where the rubber meets the road. Not everything requires massive action to be taken all the time, but at some point in time you are going to have to take action. You may be doing everything right, and your inability to make money by doing what you love may simply boil down to the fact that so far you haven’t taken enough action.
13. Lack of Purpose
If you don’t know WHY you’re doing something it is very difficult to get yourself to do it long term. Have you identified your passions and purpose in life? Maybe this is where you’re stuck right now; not knowing what it really is that you want to do.
14. Distorted View of Reality
Are you deluding yourself? Are you trying to build a $20,000/month income producing Blog in 90 days and you’re only investing 15-20 minutes into it per week? Are you trying to become the next American Idol and the only person who’s ever said that you have a good voice is your mom?
I’m not saying you can’t be or do whatever it is that you’re passionate about, but it is important to get clear on the work that may be required to become the person who you want to become.
15. Unclear Values
Get clear on what your personal values are. If your personal values don’t align with doing what you love for money, it may be impossible to sustain a level of success long term. If you don’t know what your values are, learn how to identify them.
Maybe the best thing to do is to print this list out and circle the ones your intuition thinks may be the likely culprits and then begin working on improving each one on its own. If there are specific ones on the list that you would like me to go into more depth in my future articles, don’t hesitate to ask by leaving a comment and letting me know which ones are stopping you.
I hope this self-analysis helps you identify what may have been stopping you.
It is for this exact reason I began working with success coaches about 16 months ago and I’ve grown in leaps and bounds. It is so much easier for someone else to see what is really blocking us from achieving a goal like making money doing what we love.
But what if you don’t have a coach to work with right now? Well, I’d like to identify a list of some of the more common areas that have stopped me from achieving what I want in life in the past, and perhaps it may help you identify the most likely culprit for your specific situation.
1. Fear
Fear comes in many, many flavors. It is an all-encompassing Ego centered energy that basically has only one single agenda - PROTECT THE EGO AT ALL COST. Rooted at the core of our being, fear’s job is to protect us. However, in order for us to really explore the world and do what we want to do and to enjoy life we have to venture past fear. There really is no point living life if you’re going to barricade yourself in some bunker and live in complete fear of everything around you. In order to make money doing what we love we have to get really good at identifying our fears. We all have our fears, and that’s ok.
Becoming aware of what our fears are, however, will help you to move forward. If for example you want to get into a career as a professional sales person, but you have a strong fear of rejection, it might be difficult to pick-up the phone to make sales calls. If you have a fear of public speaking, it may be difficult to pursue your passion of becoming a stand-up comedian. A great way of knowing if fear is stopping you, is to ask yourself “If I was completely fearless, what would I do?” and look at the answers that pop into your head. It will show you clearly what fear is stopping you from doing right now.
2. Laziness
A close cousin to fear is laziness. It is important to be able to distinguish between the two though, because you may find it very frustrating to not be able to do something consistently for a period of time and think that you’re being lazy, when in fact it is fear that is stopping you. For example, if you’re a sales person and you have to make outgoing phone-calls and you have a fear of rejection, it may be your fear that’s stopping you from hitting your goal of making 10 calls per day, not the fact that you’re lazy.
Ask yourself if you’re being lazy or if it’s really fear that’s stopping you. If you make a decision to visualize your dreams for 5 minutes every morning and you don’t do it, chances are that it is laziness that’s stopping you, not fear, because why would anyone have a fear of visualizing?
3. Limiting Beliefs
Very few people realize that it may be their limiting beliefs that are stopping them. For example, imagine if you’re trying to build a successful business that allows you to retire early in life but you have a deep-routed limited belief hidden in your subconscious mind that states that “Money is the root of all evil.” or that “Rich people are evil and they became rich by stepping over other people.”
Limiting beliefs are like shackles that hold you back. You can be taking positive action, you can be visualizing, you can be doing what you’re supposed to be doing, but you seem to find yourself always self-sabotaging your success. That’s how limiting beliefs work. They work behind the scenes to orchestrate failure. Most of us have some form of limiting beliefs around our dreams. Dig deep to find yours. Once you’re unshackled from your limiting beliefs you will feel a lot lighter and a lot more energized to move forward and live your dream like making money doing what you love.
4. In-congruent Identity
You have to make sure that whatever it is that you’re pursuing as a way of making money doing what you love fits in with your identity. You identity will grow throughout your life and you have to be willing to re-invent yourself constantly. For example, I used to be a programmer. That was my identity. I acted like a programmer, I dressed like a programmer, I got paid like a programmer.
As my experience in the business world grew I had to re-invent myself and I had to change some things about my identity. For example, if I wanted to build a career in sales, I would have to make sure that my identity includes the personality trait of starting conversations and smiling at people. As a programmer that may not have been a big deal, but as a sales person that may be super important.
Identify some of the personality traits and identity traits that would make up your character if you were already making money doing what you love. How is that different from who you are today? Are you willing to change?
5. Lack of Focus
Lack of focus is a big one for most people. Focus can be very easily controlled by controlling the habitual questions you allow yourself to ask yourself inside your head. If you’re constantly asking yourself questions like “How else can I be of value?” you will focus on totally different things in life compared to if you’re always asking yourself questions like “What if I don’t succeed?” or “How will I pay my rent this month?”
Get clear on the types of questions you’re asking yourself and identify where those questions force your focus.
6. Poor Habits
Habits are super important. If you can master the force of habits in your life you can do almost anything. If you do not understand how habits work and you simply allow them to run your life, it is going to be very difficult to achieve any long-term level of success in your life. Poor habits produce poor results. Rich habits produce rich results.
7. Lack of a Clear Vision
This is another big one. Do you have a crystal clear vision of what you WANT? Or do you focus all your time talking about what you DON’T want? Create a vision for yourself. You absolutely, positively must know exactly what you want and have a clear vision of it if you hope to achieve it.
8. Inability to Establish Relationships
No man or woman is an island. We live on this planet Earth as citizens of a common planet. Learn to establish human relationships, even if it’s only over the Internet. You don’t have to be best friends with everyone in the world, but building strong personal relationships based on integrity and trust will be paramount to your ability to make money doing what you love.
9. Not Asking for What You Want
Most people are afraid to ask for what they want. Don’t be one of these people. Just decide right now that you’re going to ASK for what you want. You may not get it, but at least you asked. I was at Swiss Chalet today picking up an order of food my wife ordered over the phone. When you order over the phone there is a platter combo that they don’t offer you unless you eat-in at the restaurant. When I got to the restaurant I asked them if there is a way that they can offer me the platter combo. They were happy to offer it to me, which saved me $4 on my order.
Did I ask for the combo to save $4 though? No, I asked because I am establishing a habit of asking for what I want. They didn’t have to give it to me. I would have been ok if they said no, but I wouldn’t have been ok with myself for not asking. How can you ever expect to have healthy relationships with people on Earth if you never ask for what you want. Unless you surround yourself with Psychics, you’ll always be disappointed. Just ASK!
10. Lack of Persistence
Persistence is a major key to success. You have to learn to clearly identify what it is that you want and to pursue it with all your energy. The universe favors those who have the persistence to stick to what they want. How could you be more persistent on your quest to make money by doing what you love?
11. Lack of Confidence
Self-Confidence is not something we are all automatically born with. Instead, it is something that we are always either building up or tearing down. Don’t mistake self-confidence as your ability to always succeed. Self-Confidence can be built up even during times of temporary failure. It is how you react and conduct yourself during the darkest hours that will build your confidence. How would you rate your self-confidence right now at your job? How would you rate your self-confidence at being able to make money by doing what you love? What can you do to build up your confidence levels?
12. Lack of Action
Ah, the great equalizer. This is where the rubber meets the road. Not everything requires massive action to be taken all the time, but at some point in time you are going to have to take action. You may be doing everything right, and your inability to make money by doing what you love may simply boil down to the fact that so far you haven’t taken enough action.
13. Lack of Purpose
If you don’t know WHY you’re doing something it is very difficult to get yourself to do it long term. Have you identified your passions and purpose in life? Maybe this is where you’re stuck right now; not knowing what it really is that you want to do.
14. Distorted View of Reality
Are you deluding yourself? Are you trying to build a $20,000/month income producing Blog in 90 days and you’re only investing 15-20 minutes into it per week? Are you trying to become the next American Idol and the only person who’s ever said that you have a good voice is your mom?
I’m not saying you can’t be or do whatever it is that you’re passionate about, but it is important to get clear on the work that may be required to become the person who you want to become.
15. Unclear Values
Get clear on what your personal values are. If your personal values don’t align with doing what you love for money, it may be impossible to sustain a level of success long term. If you don’t know what your values are, learn how to identify them.
Maybe the best thing to do is to print this list out and circle the ones your intuition thinks may be the likely culprits and then begin working on improving each one on its own. If there are specific ones on the list that you would like me to go into more depth in my future articles, don’t hesitate to ask by leaving a comment and letting me know which ones are stopping you.
I hope this self-analysis helps you identify what may have been stopping you.
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