05 Roadblocks to Success

While relaxing home on Sunday, did you ever take some time out to think about the big life questions. But before we do that, let me take you back to my article titled: “Find Your Why?” published on July 11th this year. The following questions are an extension to that very article.

1. What are my goals in life?
2. Have I been able to reach them yet?
3. How valuable is my life?
4. Am I really loved by someone?
5. Is life making sense anyway?
6. Does my life matter?
7. How will my future look like?
8. And what happens after death?

These are not really easy questions to answer. Today we all are challenged to think about our lives and our future. Remember, success means different to every person: like beauty, it exists in the eye of the beholder. It is our responsibility to determine what success means for us, and how we go about breeding success in our lives.

Despite this, there are definitely hindrances to success. These drawbacks are ubiquitous in their ability to deter our success. But let’s not fret because if we seek success, and we fear, our actions are blocking our desire to succeed. We have the power and control to overcome the following obstacles.

1. Stop Making Excuses

Let’s stop blaming others for why we don’t get what we want. Also let’s stop refusing to accept responsibility for our own mistakes. Remember, we make our own choices and we make our own mistakes. Let’s stop justifying our poor choices and stop attributing our lack of success to things outside of our control. Successful people don’t do this.

We will make mistakes in life, we will mess up, we are going to fail. When this inevitably occurs, let’s look within, in a non-judgmental manner, and figure out what we can do better next time. Don’t waste time looking externally by creating excuses for why we didn’t succeed.

2. Stop Focusing on the Negatives

There will be negative circumstances in life that we have no control over. There are also plenty of positive experiences in our lives. I bet we all have more positives in our lives than negatives. We are capable of living with a positive perspective. If we want to succeed in our lives, we need to concentrate on all the good around us. Remember the movie 3 Idiots Mantra? “All is Well”

In fact, one shouldn’t learn to ignore the negatives as there is always something to learn form. Even if we reach a level of ostensible success, our continued focus on the negatives will prevent us from relishing our accomplishments.

3. Stop Fearing Failures

As previously mentioned that we will have turbulent rides in our lives, we will make mistakes, we will face difficulties and we will fail but we don’t have to fear failures. Rather, we should learn to embrace all these. Learn from them, and ultimately improve upon. Failures could be another name of learning from our mistakes.

When we become successful, we know we have tried our best. And when we fail, it is not a reflection of us as people; we are not flawed individuals. View failure as an opportunity to grow, not as something to be afraid from.

4. Stop Beating Yourself Up

Of course, we wouldn’t ever beat ourselves up physically so why would we do it emotionally or mentally? Learning how to skillfully deal with our thought process and emotions when we are facing adverse situations is crucial to being successful.

There is no harm in getting upset over things. Let’s express our emotions in an appropriate manner. Be unhappy. It is going to happen. But don’t ruminate over unpleasant memories and beat yourself up over things that have already occurred. Too much time and energy spent on this diverts our attention away from more productive endeavors like getting closer to our goals.

5. Stop Being Ungrateful

The best way to establish more contentment in our lives is to be more grateful. If we want to push away happiness, joy, and bliss than be ungrateful. Gratitude breeds happiness and it also breeds success. If we are grateful for our lives and everything that we are blessed with, we are going to have a lesser complications attaining wealth and accomplishing our goals.

I don’t just mean financial wealth because wealth includes all kinds of precious relations that we are blessed with. It also doesn’t mean that all financially wealthy people are grateful, and therefore, successful, or that all financially poor people are ungrateful, and therefore unsuccessful. Being ungrateful is not congruent with getting ahead in life. If we crave success than observe everything we are grateful for. Our gratitude will serve as a compass for our lives. It will guide our decision-making, and lead us to success.

Wrap Up

Precisely, to be successful we tend to equate it with the amount of achievements we have acquired through the capabilities we possess and being at the right place and at the right time. However, success digs deeper into the meaning it has for us. As Winston Churchill once said that: “Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm”.

Let us also focus on why successful people consistently achieves success and how do they achieve it? The best one is to acknowledge the roadblocks that would hinder them from achieving their dreams. Regardless, the fundamental backbone of success is trying our best. If we put forth our best efforts, without harming others in the process, than we become successful people. This can apply to work, family, friends, relationships, hobbies, etc. I think that sums it up beautifully.

About the Author

Muhammad Sajwani is a C-Level HR, Transformation Leader, Board Advisor, Business Coach & Organisational Consultant working in the capacity of Managing Director, Evolve HR. He is an author, columnist and a contributor who besides writing for other platforms also regularly writes at BizCatalyst 360. He brings along 30+ years of local & international experience. He is a change catalyst specializing in unleashing the human genius through Leadership, Creativity and Change Management. Muhammad has been instrumental in helping organizations come to terms with organizational changes like right-sizing and business process re-engineering. His innovative approach & high personal competence encourages people to not only accept change, but also to excel in it. Muhammad has diverse experience in conducting strategic & management development programs, conferences & events for organizations across sectors.

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