Published:

12/10/2010 12:21pm

The Top Ten Reasons Why People Don't Succeed

I’d like to be able to tell you, like some motivational speakers I’ve heard say, that there is no reason why you cannot succeed, but the sad truth is that there are many valid reasons why people do not achieve any great measure of success in life. In fact, there are so many reasons why people fail to achieve the success they imagine they want that I could not possibly list them all; so I present only the top ten for you to ponder.

#10 Lack of opportunity. This is not, for you who are reading this, a valid reason.

Perhaps it is possible to say that a child born into extreme poverty, with severe handicaps, in a small impoverished third world country, does not have, and may not ever have, the opportunity to succeed; but this is not you. The mere fact that you are reading this puts you into a privileged group of people with boundless opportunity to create a successful, prosperous and fulfilling life. If you ever think, or are tempted to say, that you did not have the opportunity, then you are making up excuses, not providing a legitimate reason, for your failure to create a successful and fulfilling life.

The cold hard truth is not that you do not have (or have not had) the right opportunity; it is that, when the many opportunities that have already come your way were open to you, you were not the right person to take advantage of these opportunities. Right now, all around you, opportunities abound. You may like to pretend that they are not the right opportunity for you, but the reality is that you are not the right person for whatever opportunity is right in front of you. Fortunately, whenever you want to, you can become the right person in the right place at the right time for the right opportunity. Yes, whenever you want to finally and definitively decide to choose success, it is right there just waiting for you to say yes.

#9 Bad influence. Here are two tough but enlightening questions for you…

First: Who are you hanging around with - winners or losers? Many people suffer from being in the wrong peer group. There is a perverse comfort in hanging around with other losers, but it will do you no good to associate with people who affirm paucity and struggle or who have adopted the societal groupthink of mediocrity. Winners hang around with winners so that they can mutually affirm their own right to success. If you are really determined to create a successful life, then you will need to learn to choose your friends and associates carefully.

And second: From whom did you receive your basic education and/or fundamental attitudes about life? I know that it is likely that your parents loved you and that your teachers were probably well-intentioned; but, be honest with yourself… if they really knew how life works, then why were they not successful? Did you pick up a bunch of inappropriate information about how life works and are thus subconsciously programmed to be, to do and to have less than you deserve? If you truly desire to be successful, it is probable that you will have to re-program your mind to expect success.

#8 Fear. This is the big crippling inhibitor that prevents many from succeeding.

The primary fear that stops many from even attempting to achieve outstanding success is the fear of failure. This is truly ironic. People do not attempt great things for fear of failing; yet the simple choice to not make the attempt actually guarantees failure. So you shoot and miss. Big deal. Every shot not taken misses the goal. Babe Ruth may have been the home-run-king of baseball, but he also struck out more than any other player. Do you imagine that when he stood up at bat that he was focused on the fact that he was the strike-out-king of baseball? Everybody fails sometimes. Winners know that they will fail often. Some extremely successful people that I have interviewed have told me that the only reason they were able to achieve more success than others is simply because they failed more others or were more willing to accept the possibility of failure than others.

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