3 Reasons Why You Haven’t Achieved Life Success Yet

Stick around if you want to know.

The Toxic Pattern

For the longest time I wanted to become a writer and for the longest time, I just couldn’t put myself to start. I just couldn’t plunge in. I need to be ‘prepared’. Prepared for what? I don’t know. I was just fooling myself. We could never be prepared for anything. All we can do is just do it and learn.

Then when I finally gathered my courage and took the plunge. I struggled to get consistent in my writing practice. Why? Well, there are many reasons. For one, it’s hard. It’s hard to come up with a good topic. It’s hard to write something that I could be proud of. Even if I wrote and wrote, my writing tended to go in every direction, which needed a lot of editing. And again, editing is hard.

And then I’d read an article about this and that, and about earning 10k doing the things you love on the internet, and then I’d check it out and get distracted. I’d realize later that I’ve skipped a day or two in my writing. That got me into a rut more often than I could admit.

Or I’d write an article here or there and then all I’d hear were crickets, no feedback, no nothing, nada. And then I’d get discouraged and then again I’d skip a few days until I get myself back together again.

That’s the general pattern. From this pattern, what follows are three ideas that you need to be aware of if you really want to get what you want out of life.

1. Courage

Do you have the courage to take the plunge even without knowing everything?

Courage is one of the key factors of your success. You want to prepare and do all kinds of shit before acting because you don’t want to ‘fail’. I get it, you don’t want to get hurt, you don’t want to get embarrassed, and you don’t want to be perceived as a fool.

But if you think like that you won’t begin at all. Nobody has all the information and nobody is actually ready when they start. But you’ll have to start somewhere. You’re going to suck, you’re going to be ignored, and your ego will take a beating.

Suck it all up.

Forget about your ego and say, “Fuck it, if I have to do the lowest, most hideous job to get what I want then I will.” Some successful people have started out as a janitor and worked their way up to the top, but you’re afraid people will ignore you in the beginning?

Well, you have to get used to the idea that you’re going to be ignored and you’re going to suck in the beginning. There’s no way out of it.

At this stage, you can’t do anything but practice and learn until you become so good that nobody can’t ignore you anymore.

“Take chances, make mistakes. That’s how you grow. Pain nourishes your courage. You have to fail in order to practice being brave.” — Mary Tyler Moore

2. Consistency

Okay, so you’ve taken the plunge. Now what?

The pitfall that you’ve got to be aware of now is a lack of consistency. You’ve got to be disciplined to show up every day even if you don’t want to.

It’s going to be hard. You’ll have many stumbling blocks. For example, if you’re a beginner writer you’ll discover there is more to a successful writer than just writing (e.g. networking, art of persuasion, etc.). You’ll have to learn them on the side.

There are gonna be a lot of distractions along your way and if you’re not focused you’re gonna get sidetracked.

The first tendency is to do other things that don’t really move the needle. Well, you can read books about writing here and there but you must not forget that the task that moves the needle is for you to write. Write every day at a given time, and in a given place.

The second tendency is to get distracted by various shiny objects that go your way. You open your email and some gurus are claiming you can make 10k per month if you do this or that. It’s a bit intriguing so you look it up and “see if the gig has a merit.” Later, you look around and realize you’ve lost most of the day because you get sidetracked by a shiny object.

When you decide what you want to do in life, then don’t let any other things come between you and your dream. Remember, nothing is ever easy in life. You’ll have to work hard to get what you want. So stick to the thing that you’d enjoy even if you bust your ass working for it.

“It’s not what we do once in a while that shapes our lives. It’s what we do consistently.” — Tony Robbins

3. Persistence

So you’ve been practicing and you’ve been generally consistent. But then you encounter a major problem, or you fall ill, or you get sidetracked, what do you do?

It’s okay, think of these things as setbacks. You’ll have to work around them and get back to your path as soon as you can.

But a lot of people think of setbacks as a signal that they’re no good or that it’s not meant to be achievable for them. That may be true but you’ll have to try your best to work out the problems first.

A lot of people quit early in the game. They just encounter one problem and they throw up their hands and say they can’t do it.

They’re ignored and can’t bear the idea that they’re not good enough. It’s easier to disappear from the scene than to get ridiculed or be ignored.

When you get to this point, you’ll have to remember why you started in the first place. You’ll have to go back and again draw from your courage that somewhere along you’ll figure it out.

Remember, all of this is just a test of will, a test of courage, a test of your persistence to win.

”Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.” — Thomas Edison

The Three Factors of Success

As you must have noticed already, these three factors for life success reinforce each other. When you put yourself out there every day, sometimes you win and sometimes you lose.

You don’t only learn from your wins though, your failures will also train your courage skills. It will train you to have thick skin and be persistent.

Your persistence will pave the way for you to find solutions you’d otherwise not find if you quit early in the game. This would build your confidence to continue on your path and this in turn would lead you to be consistent with what it is you want to do in your life.

Remember, courage, consistency, and persistence — when you’re starting out be constantly aware of these three factors and make sure to keep them high whatever it takes. As you do the reps, sooner or later in your journey, they will reinforce each other and when that time comes you’ll find yourself unstoppable.

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