7 Things To Give Up For Success
7 Things To Give Up For Success
1. Unproductive Associations
As the old quote goes: "Show me your accomplice, and I will show you what you will accomplish." It is impossible too live alone in this world. You were created in such a way that you have to interact, share and continually blend with others. The tools for you to live your best life were not entirely given to you, thus the need to have relationships.
Your relationships are so interwoven with your future so much that you cannot afford to leave them to chance. Your overall character and position in life is bound to the people you spend your time with. Your associations are like an elevator, they either take you up, take you down, or get you stuck somewhere. More than any medium, the people with whom you associate with are your greatest source of information. They feed you with perceptions, ideas and realities that will shape your life, they are the mold from where you come. This is important to note. That being said, do not get stuck in a relationship that is poisonous because you want to be a nice person, life doesn't work that way. I will expound on this fact on point number 6 where I will explain about "People Pleasing."
You don't want to spend time with people who drain your energy. People who make you exhausted after talking to them for just a moment or two. Yes, there are people like that, who are so good at drowning your sunshine and energy in gossip, worthless talk, and continual negativity, from such, run and never look back! You want to spend your time with people that challenge you to be better, appreciate you, inspire you, make you more thoughtful and of course people who make you happy. So much depends on the person you spend your time with that continual pruning should never be neglected. Laying off long time buddies may not be as simple as reading this, but the pain of living a mediocre life when you could have been great is significantly greater than taking the high road and ensuring that you have the right people on your team. Your future is more important, think about it. Regretting is painful, especially if you had everything in your power to avert failure. Be wise today, and value your time, never to spend it with people who neither value it, nor and add any value to you.
2. Worthless Pursuits
No
need to sugar-coat this one. You have things that you do, that not only
make no sense, but are a total waste of time. The things that are
deadliest to success are those that we do that hinder it and go unnoticed.
The bulk of a person's success depends on a small portion of their
actions. The 80/20 rule was researched and proven that 80% of your
success comes from 20% of your efforts. So what about the other 80% of
your efforts? These, are worthless pursuits! These are the things you
need to start doing less and less of. Your success hangs on your
focusing only on productive work, all other duties can wait. Sit down
and go through your work and figure what ticks and what doesn't. Write
down those efforts that bring the most return, and go on to do them
again and again. Time will never stop, opportunities will never wait and
people who waste their days on useless fights, worthless pursuits, and unproductive projects will lose both. Do what matters, the rest have their place elsewhere but never on your schedule. Your focus should never waver from these if you are to make something extraordinary out of your life.
3. Excuses.
Excuses are like a deadly virus. They are shackle you to the same place. Worse still, excuses are habitual. It is easy to blame stuff on someone else, find a 'good' reason to validate your actions or inaction. The reason this is one of the most widespread vices and hinderance to success is because Excuses do not leave a guilt hangover. They efficiently point the burden and responsibility to everything else except you. So, in resorting to excuses you not only find solace and comfort for acting in wrong ways or not acting at all, you also take away the power of responsibility that enables you to affect your environment and take charge of your life, and steer it to the achievement of your goals and dreams. Quit making excuses and take responsibility for your life. You cannot create the future you want if you do not take responsibility for it.4. Fear.
Fear is the natural emotional response to danger. It is a critical element of life. It was placed in us as a safety trigger meant to preserve life and livelihood. It helps us protect ourselves from harm. But Fear also is believing in failure more that success, it is belittling yourself and the ambitions you have. Fear magnifies obstacles and challenges thus paralysing your hope and inspiration for success.Fear only responds to danger whether legitimate or imaginary. More often than not, our fear is based on non-factual threats. We let our lives be run by empty threats and false danger alarms. Myths have been propagated so much in people's lives so much that they voluntarily stoop low and barely scrap by in a defeatist attitude under the guise of fear. People often fear situations that are far from important, and hang back for no good reason.
The terrible thing about fear is that it has too often been mistaken for being attentive and cautious. People have lost opportunities because Fear told them they could make a fool of themselves. Many are stuck in the fear of having an unpleasant ordeal recurring. The truth remains, facing our demons may be the best way to deal with them or get past them. People do not want confrontation, they prefer peace. They'd rather live a life without collision. Yet our fears follow us everywhere, we become bold enough to face them, deal with them and overcome. As Eleanor Roosevelt once rightly said, "To be great, each day, do something that scares you."
5. Procrastination.
This is the most popular enemy of success. Procrastination is so widespread that on another day, it should have been the first point on this list. It is the continual postponing of action. "I'll do it tomorrow.", "Mmm...today is not a good day, it can wait." Action is the foundation of productivity and success, no intention ever produced anything, only action! Action delivers results and that's what creates success. You can never be great if you procrastinate. Procrastination postpones your success and greatness to an indefinite.Apart from failure, procrastination creates Regret and Loss Of Time and Opportunity.
- Regret is an emotional load noone should should carry. It weighs you down and makes you downtrodden, incapable of bringing out the best you can deliver.
- Time never comes cheap, because it never comes back. Procrastination makes you lose a lot of it.
- Opportunities lost may never be recovered. The worst mistake that people make is that they think they always have a second chance. That's far from the truth. Some opportunities present themselves once, having missed it through inaction, that's it forever!
Never postpone something if you can do it today. Always remember this quote: "What you want to do tomorrow do today, what you want to do today do now!" Cast away procrastination, act today and persist in pushing yourself to continual and productive action.
6. People Pleasing.
This is one of those things that people unncessarily get entangled in and find hard to break free. People pleasing makes you go to the ends of the earth trying to please another person without this contributing of your big picture. Don't get it wrong, there's no problem in trying to soften the ground with someone who you are likely to benefit from. There's nothing wrong with being a pleasant person. It's an overemphasis on relationships, ties, creeds without any concrete benefit coming from it.We have to draw the line on how far we go in our relationships personal,
professional or spiritual. People pleasing is an attitude that has it's roots ground on personal insecurity and
low self esteem. You feel that your worth is determined by what people
think of you, that's wrong! People are there in your life to empower and
compliment you not derail you. Don't scrap for approval from people. Truth be told, very few people will purely appreciate you. People pleasing has less
to do with the people around you or their demands upon you. It is an
irrational way of looking at how you connect to people. Be sober, don't
cage yourself to people's whims, be nice but know where to draw the
line. Your life doesn't revolve around other people's happiness as much
as it's important, your own happiness and satisfaction is much more important.
Faith without works is to live below your capacity because of inaction. If we believe in something, you should take the step to achieve it. Og Mandino in his bestselling book The Greatest Salesman in the World puts it this way...
To Your Success...
7. Faith Without Works.
We all have that one person we know who almost always has some exciting idea to share. They are experts at seeing opportunities and trends for business and articulate them so well that you'd think they have struck it big, only to bump into them after some time, this time, with another brilliant world-changing idea again. They always have a high sounding threats yet none is fulfilled.Faith without works is to live below your capacity because of inaction. If we believe in something, you should take the step to achieve it. Og Mandino in his bestselling book The Greatest Salesman in the World puts it this way...
"My dreams are worthless, my plans are dust, my goals are impossible.All are of no value unless they are followed by action. I will act now. Never has there been a map, however carefully executed to detail and scale, which carried its owner over even one inch of ground. Never has there been a parchment of law, however fair, which prevented one crime. Never has there been a scroll, even such as the one I hold, which earned so much as a penny or produced a single word of acclamation. Action, alone, is the tinder which ignites the map, the parchment, this scroll, my dreams, my plans, my goals, into a living force. Action is the food and drink which will nourish my success."There is nothing in this world as common as talented people who are unsuccessful. Nothing in this world will work if you won't. Possibilities are turned into certainties by activity. The man of action will succeed. It is never enough to know how to be great. You have to BE great. It is useless to read books, blogs and all the other material that count for success if you do not apply them. An ounce of action will always outweigh a ton of theory. The Chinese say, "the man who waits for roast duck to fly into his mouth shall wait a long time indeed." If you are to be anything, be a person of action. Be not a person of words only, but of action. Be not a person of strategies only, but of action. Faith alone without works is dead.
To Your Success...
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