Uncover These Four Blocks to Skyrocket Your Success

Accelerate your growth by answering these 4 simple questions

Are you achieving less than you wish you were?

Underachievement hurts because we know we’re letting ourselves down. We’re betraying ourselves and squandering our potential. It stings when we watch people we know aren’t as smart or talented as we are surpassing us.

I know you have talents the world needs. I believe in you.

But listen. Life isn’t fair.

It doesn’t divvy up rewards according to who innately deserves them. You don’t get a dime for being smart, talented, or virtuous. The world only pays you when it wants something from you.

You get rewarded for results, not potential.

It’s time to be brutally honest with yourself. Troubleshoot your success blocks.

Ask yourself these four questions and look yourself square in the face.

If you answer yes to any one of them, there are some actions you can take.

---

1. Do You Lack Motivation?

“And sometimes, sometimes, wanting things, wishing for, working for them, is a good thing. Otherwise, we become nothing but spoiled boys and girls frustrated that we don’t get every new toy we see.” ― Lisa Tawn Bergren, Glittering Promises

If you grew up dirt poor and chose to raise yourself up, you’ll work hard because you’ve got the hounds of poverty nipping at your heels.

But if you were born into a comfortable situation, you often continue your life in the same vein. You don’t push your boundaries. You don’t go for gold — you’re content to be a runner up.

The same goes for our fitness and weight. The naturally slim may not try so hard. They cruise through life, often about five to twenty pounds over their ideal weight. They’re fine as they are so they stay complacent.

The bottom line is: You may not care enough about achieving your goals because you are already in a comfortable place.

“What a spoiled, ungrateful ass I was.” ― Ransom Riggs, Hollow City

We’re used to thinking of kids as being spoiled, but what about adults?

This is one of my hurdles. Like many Westerners, I’m spoiled. All of my basic needs are already met. It’s hard to be motivated to work more than you have to.

Nature always takes the path of least resistance. Resting on our laurels is our default repose.

Many of us received excessive praise from teachers or parents for low achievements. We expect adult life to be that way, and it’s not.

If everyone’s already a winner, no one needs to try. If our parents and teachers don’t have high enough expectations of us, we don’t either.

Solution

Identify the reasons you want to achieve your goals.

Action steps

1. Ask yourself, Why do I want what I say I want?

If you want to be wealthier than you are, ask yourself why. Write down ten good reasons.

Not having to live with cockroaches is a good reason. Being able to pay for a root canal should be strong enough motivation for anyone. Knowing you can pay for any medical care that might come up is more than valid.

Being able to afford Botox or new shoes or high-quality food — these are all excellent reasons if those things are important to you.

I want to be there in case any of my loved ones need me. Money can save a life. My dog needed some expensive medical treatment last year. The vet told me he’d had another client with the same problem who had to put their dog down because of a lack of funds.

I love the options wealth gives me and the ease that comes from buying anything I want from the grocery store. Leaving an amazing inheritance for my son is a priority for me.

Sometimes, our reasons can surprise us. Maybe it’s not a better quality of life you’re primarily after, but a way of building up your self-esteem. You want to see yourself differently.

Or perhaps you want to prove something to someone — a parent who never believed in you, a sibling who belittled you, a teacher who said you’d never amount to much. If this is the case, that’s fine too. Revenge is a valid motivation.

It could also be that you want to live up to someone else’s expectations of you. Perhaps your parents have high hopes for you, and you don’t want to let them down. If this is true for you, that’s ok to use as your motivation.

Just be sure you’re also doing it for yourself, and not only for them.

2. Visualize.

How would you feel if you had the home of your dreams? Picture it as if it were already true. A great feeling, right?

What if it was three years from now, and your online store was booming because of all the hard work you’ve put into it? Wouldn’t you feel ecstatic?

Imagine how it would feel if you spent an hour working out every day for a year. Your body would be amazing. Even more importantly, you’d be bursting with pride, thanking yourself repeatedly as you slipped on your loose jeans.

Keep focusing on the benefits. Hold your vision in your mind to spur you to pursue your dreams.

---

2. Do You Want Conflicting Things?

“A man cannot eat his cake and haue it stil.” — John Davies, 1611.

In Russia, they say, “You can’t sit on two chairs.” In Germany, it’s, “You can’t dance at two weddings.” In Anglo culture, we call it, “Trying to have your cake and eat it too.”

In Robert Pirsig’s philosophical novel, Zen And The Art Of Motorcycle Maintenance, there is a description of, “The Old South Indian Monkey Trap”. The trap “consists of a hollowed-out coconut, chained to a stake. The coconut has some rice inside which can be grabbed through a small hole”. The monkey puts his hand into the hole but can’t pull it out because he won’t let go of the rice.

The monkey is trapped by his own idea. He cannot understand that the principle of holding tight to food, which has always served him well, no longer serves him.

Often, we want more than one thing, and they don’t always meld. We want the rice in the coconut, and we won’t let go of it, even though it’s stopping us from getting something else we want.

We want to work on our side-business over the weekend, but we also want to go road biking. We want to hit the gym in the evenings to reach our fitness goal, but we also want to go home and veg out, watching Netflicks and eating carbs.

Maybe we’re in a new relationship with someone we like, but we’re just not ready to completely let go of our ex. We’re making our new relationship fail before it’s begun, and we’re blowing our chances of getting back with our ex at the same time.

“The sun’s rays do not burn until brought to a focus.” — Alexander Graham Bell

Creation and reaction are the opposite of each other — look at the spelling of each. If you’re not prioritizing, you’re not creating your life. You’re reacting to your life.

If you don’t have a clear plan when you get up in the morning, you’ll end up drifting through your day, bouncing from task to task, or doing what other people want you to do.

Solution

Make a decision and release your grasp.

Action steps

1. Decide your top three priorities.

I have three top priorities, in this order: First priority: My connection to life-force, well-being, and health. Second priority: My family, friends, and community. Third priority: My prosperity.

Each supports and includes the other. Everything I do with my time and money must support one of those three things, if not all of them.

What are your top three priorities? Give it some deep thought and write them down.

2. Write down all your projects and activities, including the things you are still deciding on.

Look at your list and ask yourself, which of these most support my top three priorities? Put them into order, beginning with the most supportive to the least.

Which ones would you cut out if you were forced? Cross them out until you know you can’t eliminate any more. If any of the things on your list don’t support your priorities, release your grasp and let them go.

Whatever is left on this list are the things you should work on daily.

---

3. Are You Self-Sabotaging?

“If your subconscious belief system is not aligned with your goals, you will always self-sabotage your own progress” — Liz Hub, 8 Surprising Reasons Your Are Not as Successful as You Want to Be

If we’re used to thinking of ourselves as capable of only a certain achievement level, our self-image becomes fixed. If we’ve received messages about our inadequacy for much of our lives, we internalize that.

I was a dreamy, stare-out-of-the-window kind of kid. Bad at sports, clumsy, painfully shy, unpopular. I wore thick glasses from a young age and was still too short-sighted to see the blackboard. To myself, I was the stupidest and ugliest girl in the world.

This way of seeing myself seemed like fact until I was into my 20s.

Talk about low-self-esteem! I filtered out anything in my experience that didn’t mesh with my miserable self-image.

Are you doing this? If you don’t see yourself as millionaire material, you simply won’t see millionaire opportunities or think millionaire thoughts. You won’t even talk to big-players because you’ll feel too unworthy around them.

If no one in your family has ever done much with their lives, maybe you don’t see yourself as that kind of person either. It won’t matter how good-looking you are — if you’ve been told you’re ugly enough times, you’ll never believe it. If you’ve always thought of yourself as a bit doughy and non-athletic, you won’t exercise and prove that preconception wrong.

Symptoms of self-sabotage include: procrastination, low self-esteem, negativity, poor eating habits, drug-use, excessive alcohol consumption, poor self-care, poor financial choices and ‘flakiness’. There are probably many more.

According to Psychologist Dr. Ellen Hendriksen, all self-sabotage stems from fear of failure. She explains that we sabotage ourselves in order to blame the sabotage for our failure, rather than ourselves.

I know what it feels like to hold yourself in low-regard. The trouble is, our actions will match our poor view of ourselves, so it becomes self-fulfilling over time.

A feedback loop develops where we reconfirm that lowly identity and make it true.

Solution

Redesign your self-image.

Action steps

1. Start doing things to build your self-esteem.

Earn your own respect by keeping your promises to yourself. Work hard, get an education, extend yourself. Take risks even if it means the possibility of failure.

Learn, grow, take action. Build wholesome habits. Do good things until your self-image is forced to adjust.

2. Run a different script.

Do affirmations. If you feel inadequate, write the words, I am powerful and capable, down one hundred times a day until you feel something in you shift. For more punch, use your first name and say it out loud. (So it’s, ‘I, Freddie-Jay or Little-Dee or whatever-your-name happens to be, am powerful and capable.’)

I’m not going to go into great detail here about affirmations because it’s a whole separate subject. But trust me, affirmations work, just as negations work.

3. Bring awareness.

Notice your triggers. Pay attention to the way you describe and treat yourself. Observe yourself. Consciousness will fix things for you.

---

4. Are You Asking the Wrong Question?

“Success means we go to sleep at night knowing that our talents and ablities were used in a way that served others.” ― Marianne Williamson

“What you give is what you get.” — Anonymous

If you’re asking why the world isn’t giving more to you, you’re asking the wrong question. When you’re coming from an inherently selfish place, the world will reflect that by refusing to share with you.

When you give, the world gives back.

You have to tap into a higher purpose than your wants and sense of lack. You have to find something that motivates you to give of yourself.

You’re deluded if you think you have nothing to offer the world. The world is waiting with bated breath for your gifts. You have a purpose, just as everything in nature has a purpose.

You’re made of stars. It’s time to shine.

Solution

Focus on the giving, not the getting.

Action steps

1. Start giving of yourself.

You give when you let people read your writing. You give when you open up a store and let people buy your goods. You give when you try your hardest to be helpful at work.

Smiling is a gift. Listening is a gift. Saying thank you to someone is an act of generosity. You give when you go back to college and get yourself better educated so you can offer your skills to the market.

Being all you can be is giving to the world.

2. Ask yourself: What is the one thing I can do that is the most helpful to the most people?

The key to your success lies in the answer to this one question.

---

In Conclusion

If you answered yes to any of the above questions, it’s up to you to take action. Reading one article isn’t going to fix everything in your life, but the choices you make from this point on can.

You know you’re capable of more. Capable of doing more, being more, having more.

Has reading this helped you uncover a lack of motivation or a desire for conflicting things? Are you self-sabotaging or focusing on what you’re getting rather than what you’re giving?

Dig deep and identify your reasons to achieve. Focus on those reasons every day. Ensure you’ve established your priorities and are crystal clear on what they are. Remind yourself daily. Imprint them on your soul.

Align your self-image with the reality of who you are. You may not be perfect, but you’re a growing human being with unlimited potential.

You are a process, not an object. As Tony Robbins says, “Your past does not equal your future.”

Reflect deeply and take action. Your success will come as surely as the tide washing across the shore.

---

Thank you for reading. I wish you everything.