Top 11 Ways People Sabotage Their Success

Watching Television: Television is a great thing if you use it strategically to increase your success. If you watch Home / Garden TV to learn how to stage your home so it sells faster and for more money, that’s a strategic use of TV. If, however, you get addicted to “Desperate Housewives”, you are pretty much wasting your time and knocking out 52 hours a year that could have been spent on something that would help you achieve your goals.

Too Much Relaxation: I certainly understand unwinding and occasionally smelling the roses, but it seems our society has overemphasized this to the point where every spare moment is devoted to “taking a break”. A colleague of mine who is a psychiatrist told me our society is becoming weaker all the time. No one knows the real meaning of working hard. If you work full time at a dreaded JOB and you want to start your own business, you are going to have to work evenings, early mornings and weekends to make it a reality. If you’re not thrilled to do that and willing to give up a few rounds of golf or blowing all Saturday going to the movies and out to dinner, then don’t bother starting. You’re doomed to fail.

Resisting Self-Sufficient Learning: To be successful usually involves increasing one type of skill or the other. There are enormous learning opportunities available because of the Internet starting at FREE and going up from there. I learned how to hook up network cables and punch blocks in my entire school just by watching free YouTube videos. Not only did I save thousands of dollars, I can troubleshoot the system if something goes wrong which again would save me time and money. I bought cheap Udemy courses to learn how to do retargeting advertising on line. You can hardly think of a skill that doesn’t have a corresponding online course available somewhere. You can also find tutors either in person or through Skype. Heck they are even teaching dog training one-on-one (plus the dog) on Skype. If you don’t seek out training, the chances are it won’t just fall into your lap.

Overspending: With high interest credit so easy to get, people are tempted to buy things impulsively and in many cases overspend while they’re doing it. Much of my adult life has been used up selling on the commercial Internet so I’ll use that as an example. Literally hundreds of people have come to my training after spending anywhere from $5,000.00 to as much as $80,000.00 for a website. Unless you’re swimming in money and don’t really care, this is crazy! Nowadays a child can make a world class website for less than 100 bucks. It’s OK with me if you spend 50 to 800 times as much for your website, but I can tell you if you keep up that kind of spending, it will be 50 to 800 times as tough to become successful in your business. The same applies to anything you spend money on, from apartments, to houses, to cars, boats, etc. The more you know, the better deal you can make.

Rotten Personality: I don’t want to blow my own horn . . . OK I’ll blow it a little . . . I believe my personality has really helped to make me successful and in more ways than you might think. First I try to be pleasant to be around. When you’re pleasant more people want to be around you, make deals with you, do favors for you, etc. I’m not saying anything about being a push over because I have the ability (which I reserve for bad people) to be their worst nightmare. What might surprise you about this is that by treating people nicely, I have few enemies (except for the bad people noted above) so I sleep really well. Sleeping well helps you to be successful because you have plenty of energy to do the things you’re supposed to be doing.

Always Taking: TAKE, TAKE, TAKE, GIMME, GIMME, GIMME, MINE, MINE, MINE . . . People get sick very quickly of others who are all about themselves. Everything belongs to them, everything revolves around them, no one else matters. This can be as simple as borrowing 5 bucks and making the person you borrowed it from remind you to pay it back. Or it can be as serious as getting into a relationship where the other person must cater to you and you never give anything back. Inevitably the people you take from will quit giving and word will spread that you’re a “taker”. Soon no one will want to do anything to help you toward your success. If you’ve been really selfish, they will probably do everything in their power to undermine your success.

Being Late: When you are chronically late you are showing a tremendous disrespect for others who are expecting you at a certain time. When you consistently disrespect others do you think they will have a great respect for you? They are more likely to make fun of you by saying things like, “Let’s go. Joe’s never on time and he may not show up at all.” In my book you don’t deserve any respect if you’re late all the time. Get up earlier. Start out earlier. There’s no excuse to be chronically late. NONE.

Little Pride in Your Work: Want to get a terrible reputation fast? Half ass everything you do. There are people in my life that I know are just coasting. They get the bare minimum done to get by. Do you think I have a great respect for them and that I can’t wait to help them be successful? Heck no! I go overboard to help people who go the extra mile and I put up with people that don’t. If you give poor quality, you will most likely get poor quality assistance toward your goals if you get any at all.

Being Unfair: Most of us were taught to be fair. “Split the piece of cake with your sister”. “You get a turn to play with the truck and then your friend gets a turn”. “I’ll help you clean your room and you help me clean mine”. If you forget that sense of fairness you learned as a kid, ultimate success will be hard for you to achieve. I’ve always tried to be fair with people in both my business and personal life. Here’s an example from my business. Let’s say I messed up a customer’s order and they’re mad about it. I say, “It’s my fault and I want to be ‘fair’ about this. What can I do to make it up to you?” Most people know what’s fair and what isn’t. I’d say in almost every case over many years in business, the person asked for way less than I was willing to give. Plus, they were happier because they got what they wanted . . . not what I offered them.

Not Doing What You Say: It’s sad that we’ve become a society where “I’ll call you Tuesday” could mean any of the following. “I will never call you”, “2 Minutes from now I won’t even remember I said I would call you Tuesday”, “I’ll call you any darn time I feel like it”, “I’ll email you sometime and it might be Tuesday”, “I’ll buttcall you accidentally, Tuesday three years from now”, etc. What’s good for you is that it doesn’t take much to stand way above the crowd. Just do what you say you’re going to do. At first other people will be surprised because they forgot you were supposed to call them Tuesday 30 seconds after you said it. After a while you will get the reputation of being a reliable person that is dependable. Guess who gets the breaks in life when it comes to something important . . . the reliable people.

Finally, not being Consistent and Persistent: The two most important things I feel contribute to my success is consistency and persistence. I don’t really feel I’m a natural at anything. Everything I’ve ever done has involved hard work and the ability to stick it through when times get tough. Our current generation are not being pushed past their comfort levels. They are being rewarded for poor or non-existent performance. . . . Everyone gets a trophy. . . . It’s always OK to quit . . . Well, no it’s not. . . . People will never reach their full potential if they quit what they’re doing if it’s a little hard. I’ve seen this on the tennis court when I, a fat old guy, was beating a 14-year-old prodigy. The kid literally quit in the middle of the match and walked off the court with his pitiful mother chasing after him telling him everything will be alright. Had I done that as a kid, I would have been running laps until I was 40. So, if you want to be successful, give yourself an honest self-evaluation. Identify the things on this list that you’re guilty of and make an honest effort to improve. Be consistent and persistent in your efforts and your success will be inevitable.