Background
I, Guus, was looking for inspiration and started reading Getting it Together
And it just doesn’t and didn’t make sense, because I have the feeling I’m doing all the things “you’re supposed to do” to become or be successful. And I’m not. I’m at some very low point in my life financially, so a failure point, and I have no clue what to learn from it and don’t know where to go.
And then I ended up in chapter 16, It’s Up To You and there I think I found some answers.
Four reasons
In the chapter It’s Up to You Noel Whittaker mentions four reasons why so many people fail to take control of their lives:
- They don’t believe they have the ability.
- They don’t want to put the effort.
- They have been conditioned to believe they are victims.
- They don’t know how to get started.
And I realized that I have been focusing on the second, doing the effort. And believe me, I did and do a lot of effort. But apparently I have been looking in the wrong direction.
So when you consider yourself not successful and have been focusing on one or more of these points you may have also been asking yourself why you are not successful.
So ask yourself which of the areas may be the cause that you did not achieve success yet and then read below some suggestions what to do.
You have no faith in your ability
Having no faith in your ability may have been caused by a faulty self concept that probably is the result of a previous failure pattern created by past events in your life. Or you may have just been too scared to try things. Another reason may be that you compare yourself to others.
A good way to start dealing with this is to stop comparing yourself with others. Then concentrate on becoming an authority on something.
And that ‘something’ could be anything, like a hobby or something you already know a lot about or are already an expert on.
Not wanting to put in the effort
It is said often that winners are those who do the things that losers are unwilling to do. And often putting in the effort sets winners apart.
If you find yourself not putting the effort the reason is probably lack of motivation, not laziness. Or said otherwise, lack of enthusiasm.
The way to overcome this best or easiest is to find something you enjoy, like making your work into a hobby. And the best way to do this is to keep learning and finding new experiences to try until you find your niche. You may find you have triple the energy when you have found something you enjoy doing.
Bad conditioning
You may have a family background where it is normal to blame everybody else for what goes wrong.
If this is the case you may want to do some quiet thinking. And keep in mind it may be virtually impossible to change the views of your family members.
Best is to find some positive people to mix with and if possible start, or join, a mastermind group.
Most important to keep in mind is to see the negative input as the negative input it is, nothing more, nothing less.
Not knowing how to get started
You may have so many things on your plate that you can’t make the time to start. Or maybe ou are just the victim of good old procrastination. No matter what it its, commencing any project is nearly always difficult.
The hardest part of writing a book is nearly always preparing the chapter outlines. For a painter it may be staring at a blank canvas. The famous Russian author Fyodor Dostoevsky said “Taking a new step, uttering a new word, is what people fear most”.
Another issue may be you are setting too high and too complicated goals.
Best way to start is setting practical and simple goals. And/or if they are larger goals split them up into smaller goals and make each sub goal a separate goal.
Taking responsibility
Roger Whittaker ends this chapter with:
It can be difficult to move out of your comfort zone and start to accept full responsibility for your actions. However, only by doing this you can take charge of your life and direct it where you want it to go. Your future is safer in your hands than in the hands of somebody else and infinitely more fulfilling”.